MOSCOW (UrduPoint News/Sputnik – December 29, 2022) Russia invites all African countries to the Russia-Africa summit, unlike the United States, which did not invite several African countries to a similar summit, the Foreign Affairs Minister said. Russian Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov.
“Recently, the Americans organized the US-Africa summit. And unlike us, who invited everyone to the first summit and invited everyone to the second one in the middle of next year, the Americans were deciding for themselves what Africa is.” as a geographical concept. Six or seven countries were not invited because the governments there had come to power illegally, not through elections,” Lavrov said during the Big Game program on Russia’s Channel One.
But in Ukraine in 2014, the government came to power “simply through a bloody coup,” Lavrov recalled.
The US-Africa Summit was held in December and was attended by the heads of state and government of 49 African states, as well as a representative of the African Union. Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Sudan, where coups had previously taken place, were not invited to the three-day event. The forum did not include Eritrea, with which the United States does not have diplomatic relations. The leaders of Zimbabwe and South Africa previously said they would not attend.
The first Russia-Africa summit was held in October 2019 in Sochi. The second summit is scheduled for July 2023 in Saint Petersburg.
