EU/Afrika — 10th EU-South Africa ministerial political dialogue

Sudan

The Par­ties wel­comed the large­ly peace­ful con­duct of the recent elec­tions in Sudan and com­mend­ed the peo­ple of the Sudan for their active par­tic­i­pa­tion. They not­ed the efforts to form a new gov­ern­ment and called upon all par­ties to set­tle out­stand­ing dif­fer­ences and to estab­lish a broad polit­i­cal basis in view of the imple­men­ta­tion of the remain­ing ele­ments of the CPA. Both sides stressed the need for all par­ties to ful­ly respect the CPA, to address the remain­ing imple­men­ta­tion issues, in par­tic­u­lar the hold­ing of the Ref­er­en­dum on South­ern Sudan’s self-deter­mi­na­tion in Jan­u­ary 2011 and the nec­es­sary arrange­ments for the post-ref­er­en­dum peri­od. They took cog­nizance of the impor­tance of the postre­f­er­en­dum sup­port processes. 

They appealed to all par­ties to abstain from any ini­tia­tives which might desta­bi­lize this process and to pur­sue con­fi­dence build­ing. The Par­ties stressed the impor­tance of a close AU — EU coop­er­a­tion. They encour­aged the African Union High-Lev­el Imple­men­ta­tion Pan­el for Sudan (AUHIP), led by for­mer Pres­i­dent Thabo Mbe­ki, to con­tin­ue to play an active role in con­tribut­ing to a smooth con­clu­sion of the CPA and assist­ing in the demo­c­ra­t­ic trans­for­ma­tion of the coun­try. The good coop­er­a­tion between the UN mis­sions in Sudan, the AU and IGAD as well as the oth­er inter­na­tion­al actors remains essential.

Soma­lia

The Par­ties recalled the sig­nif­i­cance of the Agree­ment between the Tran­si­tion­al Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment (TFG) and Ahlu Sun­nah Wal Jamaah signed in Addis Aba­ba on 15 March 2010 and empha­sised the need to scale-up sup­port for the ini­tia­tive. They encour­aged the sig­na­to­ries to ensure speedy and effec­tive imple­men­ta­tion, and called upon the TFG to pur­sue its pol­i­cy of inclu­sive­ness with a view to accom­mo­dat­ing all Soma­lis com­mit­ted to peace and nation­al rec­on­cil­i­a­tion in the frame­work of the Dji­bouti accord. The EU expressed its con­tin­ued sup­port for and appre­ci­a­tion of AMISOM and the AU’s polit­i­cal engage­ment in Soma­lia. South Africa expressed its appre­ci­a­tion for the EU’s efforts, and in par­tic­u­lar for the sup­port to the Soma­li secu­ri­ty sec­tor. Both sides agreed on coop­er­at­ing towards the capac­i­ty and insti­tu­tion build­ing projects for the TFG and Soma­lis in general.

Mada­gas­car

South Africa and the Euro­pean Union recog­nise that the Maputo Agree­ments and the Addis Aba­ba Addi­tion­al Act signed in August and Novem­ber 2009 by all four main Mala­gasy role play­ers con­sti­tute a deci­sive gain in the cri­sis exit process and a vital foun­da­tion for the con­duct of an inclu­sive, con­sen­su­al and as short as pos­si­ble tran­si­tion based on the hold­ing of cred­i­ble, trans­par­ent, free and fair elec­tions in Mada­gas­car. Both Par­ties con­grat­u­late the efforts under­tak­en in this respect by Pres­i­dent Zuma, the SADC Medi­a­tor, for­mer Mozam­bi­can Pres­i­dent Chissano, and AU Com­mis­sion Pres­i­dent Ping, and encour­age the African medi­a­tion to be fur­ther pur­sued. Both Par­ties urge the Mala­gasy par­ties to con­tin­ue nego­ti­a­tions with a view to find­ing a nego­ti­at­ed set­tle­ment of the debil­i­tat­ing polit­i­cal cri­sis in their coun­try and urgent­ly imple­ment­ing the agreements. 

Zim­bab­we

The Par­ties exchanged views on the lat­est polit­i­cal devel­op­ments in Zim­bab­we. In this regard, they not­ed progress made regard­ing the appoint­ment of the Com­mis­sion­ers for the Media, Human Rights and Elec­toral Com­mis­sions. How­ev­er, they expressed con­cern over the slow pace in the full imple­men­ta­tion of the Glob­al Polit­i­cal Agree­ment and urged the mem­bers of the Inclu­sive Gov­ern­ment to move for­ward rapid­ly. South Africa’s Pres­i­dent Zuma and his Facil­i­ta­tion Team were com­mend­ed for their efforts and SADC was encour­aged to remain seized with the process. The Par­ties also not­ed and encour­aged the ongo­ing EU-Zim­bab­we polit­i­cal dia­logue based on the Arti­cle 8 of the Coto­nou Agree­ment. They also rec­og­nized the com­ple­men­tar­i­ty of South Africa’s Facil­i­ta­tion efforts and the EU – Zim­bab­we polit­i­cal dia­logue aim­ing at pro­mot­ing and sup­port­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of the Glob­al Polit­i­cal Agreement. 

Burun­di

South Africa com­mends the EU on the invalu­able sup­port ren­dered in the res­o­lu­tion of the con­flict in Burun­di. Our strong part­ner­ship, inter alia, assured the suc­cess achieved and pro­vid­ed sup­port to the peo­ple of Burun­di. South Africa is indeed very encour­aged by this pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to peace and sta­bil­i­ty in Africa. Both Par­ties look for­ward to the upcom­ing elec­tions as a pos­i­tive mile­stone in the demo­c­ra­t­ic process of Burun­di. Mid­dle East Peace Process

South Africa and the EU stressed their unequiv­o­cal sup­port for the imme­di­ate resump­tion of nego­ti­a­tions. These nego­ti­a­tions should lead to a set­tle­ment with­in 24 months. Both par­ties remain com­mit­ted to the two-state solu­tion with an inde­pen­dent, demo­c­ra­t­ic, con­tigu­ous and viable Pales­tin­ian State, com­pris­ing the West Bank includ­ing East Jerusalem and Gaza liv­ing side by side in peace and secu­ri­ty with the State of Israel. South Africa and the EU reit­er­at­ed that set­tle­ments and relat­ed activ­i­ties and the sep­a­ra­tion bar­ri­er where built on occu­pied land, as well as evic­tions and the demo­li­tion of homes are ille­gal under inter­na­tion­al law and con­sti­tute an obsta­cle to peace and threat­en to make a two-state solu­tion impossible.

Both South Africa and the EU stressed their call for an imme­di­ate, sus­tained and uncon­di­tion­al open­ing of cross­ings for the flow of human­i­tar­i­an aid, com­mer­cial goods and per­sons to and from Gaza and urged the full imple­men­ta­tion of UNSCR 1860 and the full respect of inter­na­tion­al human­i­tar­i­an law. Both Par­ties also agreed that they would wel­come free and fair Pales­tin­ian elec­tions when con­di­tions permit.

In rela­tion to the report of the UN Fact Find­ing Mis­sion on the Gaza Con­flict, both par­ties take care­ful note of the call by the Unit­ed Nations Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil for both sides to con­duct inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tions into alleged vio­la­tions of human rights and Inter­na­tion­al Human­i­tar­i­an Law.

At the same time, both sides encour­age Israel, as it does sim­i­lar­ly the Pales­tini­ans, to assume a con­struc­tive approach to a fur­ther cred­i­ble and ful­ly inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into the alle­ga­tions. Such inves­ti­ga­tions car­ried out by all par­ties to the con­flict are essen­tial for ensur­ing account­abil­i­ty for human rights and Inter­na­tion­al Human­i­tar­i­an Law vio­la­tions, rul­ing out impuni­ty and, ulti­mate­ly, con­tribut­ing to rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and a durable peace.

Both Par­ties also agreed that a com­pre­hen­sive peace must include a set­tle­ment between Israel and Syr­ia as well as between Israel and Lebanon. Con­se­quent­ly, both Par­ties urged the Gov­ern­ments of Israel and Syr­ia to redou­ble their efforts to advance towards peace and sup­port­ed all efforts aimed at the reac­ti­va­tion of the talks between the two countries. 

AOB

South Africa expressed its grat­i­tude to the Euro­pean Union for their hos­pi­tal­i­ty dur­ing the Min­is­te­r­i­al meeting. 

Source:
Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union