Luanda - The ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Non-Aligned Countries Movement (NAM) expressed their appreciation to the Angolan Head of State, João Lourenço, for his diplomatic efforts in favour of peace and stability in the Great Lakes Region.
Highlighting the role of the Angolan Head of State as Champion of the African Union for Peace and Reconciliation in Africa and President of the CIRGL, the document, released this Thursday, says that the ministers welcomed the decisions of the Summit of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (CIRGL), held in Luanda, on the 3rd of June 2023.
According to the communiqué, the foreign ministers also welcomed the holding of the Quadripartite Summit on the coordination and harmonization of peace initiatives in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), also in the Angolan capital on 27 June.
This summit was attended by the East African Community (EAC), the Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC), the CIRGL and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), as well as the concerning countries, namely the DRC and the Rwanda, along with the United Nations.
The document adds that the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the of Non-Aligned Countries Movement were informed that the meeting of the Interministerial Regional Committee of the CIRGL, held in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, on October 15, 2019, analyzed the political and peace in the Great Lakes Region.
They noted with satisfaction the positive political and security developments in the Great Lakes Region.
“In this context, they congratulated the DRC on the success of the transparent and self-financed elections that led to a peaceful transition and welcomed the Memorandum of Understanding recently signed between Uganda and Rwanda for the peaceful resolution of the situation between the two countries”, says the statement.
The ministers also welcomed the establishment of the CIRGL Regional Training Center on 18 February 2014 in Kampala to combat gender-based sexual violence in the Great Lakes Region.
They commended the region's efforts to address the current crisis and underscored the need to “eradicate armed groups, including but not limited to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which committed genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, the Allied Forces Democratic and other organized negative forces that continue to destabilize the region”.
The NAM heads of diplomacy reiterated the need and urgency of the effective neutralization of all negative forces, in accordance with the decisions of the AU, CIRGL and SADC as a priority to bring stability and security to the DRC and the Great Lakes Region.
The Angolan delegation was made up of the Angolan Ambassador to the Republic of Azerbaijan, residing in the Russian Federation, Augusto da Silva Cunha, the Permanent Representative of Angola to the United Nations, Ambassador Francisco José da Cruz, and officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Mirex ).
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