/ 1 January 2002

Dlamini-Zuma jets off to Libya on AU business

Foreign affairs minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma will visit the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Friday on the second leg of a three-nation African tour.

Dlamini-Zuma left South Africa on Thursday for Rwanda, where she led a delegation to the second session of the South Africa-Rwanda Joint Commission of Co-operation.

Friday’s visit stems from an invitation by her DRC counterpart, Leonard She Okitundu, to address a local heads of mission conference underway in that country, the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Dlamini-Zuma would speak to the gathering of DRC ambassadors and high commissioners on the subject of South African foreign policy in the Great Lakes region.

The foreign minister will then fly to Libya on Sunday, where she will attend and chair an extra-ordinary session of the executive council of the African Union (AU).

The three-day meeting is set to consider proposed amendments to the AU’s constitutive act.

These were first tabled during the launch of the AU in Durban in July this year.

Countries that have made proposals include South Africa, Libya, Senegal, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Tanzania and Mozambique.

”Some of the proposed amendments are technical in nature while others are aimed at clarifying existing articles of the constitutive act,” the department said. – Sapa