Kuleba's second African tour scheduled for summer

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working on organizing the second African tour of Ukrainian diplomat Dmytro Kuleba in the summer and holding a Ukraine-Africa summit.

Special Representative of Ukraine for the Middle East and Africa Maksym Subkh said in an interview with Ukrinform.

"We are now working to ensure that the Minister's second African tour takes place in the summer and covers new countries on the African continent," Subkh said.

He reminded that this year marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the African Union, and May 25 is Africa Day.

"We would like Ukraine to join these events at a high level. The work is ongoing, because preparing visits requires communication, sending official requests and obtaining approvals," the diplomat explained.

According to him, the Ukraine-Africa conference is also being prepared, and the Foreign Ministry is currently determining its main topics and is constantly communicating on this issue with the Presidential Office and relevant ministries.

"We communicate with research institutes, agricultural academies, our exporters, and we see how many modern technologies Ukraine has that no one in Africa knows about and has no access to. Therefore, our goal is to build a bridge for the introduction of our technologies in Africa through such summits and visits," Subh said.

He said that the Ukraine-Africa summit is planned to be held in Kyiv and that heads of state from all over the African continent will be invited to attend.

"We know that a Russia-Africa summit is planned for July, and we urge African countries not to participate in it. In our opinion, it is immoral to be on the territory of the aggressor state while the war against our country continues. We would like African countries to boycott this event, at least by their leaders, to demonstrate that Africa does not agree with what Russia is doing in Ukraine," said the Special Representative of Ukraine for the Middle East and Africa.

According to him, Ukraine has already received certain signals from some countries that they are in no way considering participating in this event until Russia withdraws its troops and stops the war.

Author - Serhii Kolomiets, 26/03/2023