Luanda – Angolan minister of Foreign Affairs Teté Antonio said on Thursday that the country has contributed to the leverage and strengthening of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) to face the challenges of peace, security, stability and development.
The diplomat was speaking during a lecture on “Angola's foreign policy and its role in promoting peace in the Great Lakes Region”, held on Thursday at the Itamaraty Institute, Brasília, Republic of Brazil.
Addressing diplomats, university professors, men linked to culture and researchers in African affairs, Téte António said that the country has the support of the most varied bilateral and multilateral partners in this task.
He pointed to Political-Diplomatic, Defence and Security, Intelligence, Economic and Regional Development vectors, as well as the functioning of the Executive Secretariat of the ICGLR, as the axes that guide the strategy of the Angolan Presidency.
He recalled that since assuming the presidency of the ICGLR, the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, has carried out a series of initiatives aimed at ensuring the stability of the political and security situation in the Central African Republic, marked by the acceptance of leaders of the armed groups to abandon the rebellion.
The minister also said the 16th Extraordinary Session of the AU Conference of Heads of State and Government on Terrorism and Unconstitutional Regime Changes in Africa, held in Malabo, on 27 and 28 May 2022, at the proposal of Angola, elected the Angolan Head of State Champion of the African Union for Peace and Reconciliation in Africa.
The Session also gave him the mandate to embark on diplomatic “path”, within the scope of mediating the growing tension that was registered in the common border between the “DRC and the Rwanda".
During his address, the Angolan diplomat made a brief historical incursion of the Republic of Angola, with emphasis on trends in the evolution of foreign policy.
He spoke of the national liberation struggle, the explicit political-ideological preferences in Angola's independence process and the signing of the Bicesse Agreement, which brought the country a new phase of political-social intervention and international relations.
The minister clarified the moment of 2002, when Angola began to experience a period marked, above all, by the more concrete political transition process, the promotion and reinforcement of national mechanisms for the consolidation of the democratic process, the broadening and deepening of multilateral, regional relations and bilateral, within the ambit of ties of friendship and cooperation.
As for foreign policy, the Minister of Foreign Affairs explained that the Executive chose economic diplomacy as one of its main instruments for defending the interests of the State, aiming, among others, at promoting trade, attracting productive investment, creating better conditions for the operation of foreign investors and attracting the tourist flow. ART
