Visiting South African President Thabo Mbeki has been supportive of European Union plans to send up to 2 000 soldiers to the Democratic Republic of Congo before and after free elections, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday.
Speaking after meeting Mbeki in Berlin, she said the South African leader viewed the engagement of the EU and Germany in the DRC as the right thing to do. She said this ”positive attitude” from South Africa was important for the mission.
South Africa was initially wary of the EU plans to deploy peacekeepers to the African country.
Merkel and others asked Mbeki to speak to DRC President Joseph Kabila in favour of the mission.
Mbeki said in Berlin on Saturday that the ultimate decision was up to the Congolese. The president added that the support of Germany was important to the whole of Africa in mastering threats to the continent.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier meanwhile said in an interview that the mission to DRC, where elections are due to be held on July 30, was necessary to stabilise the Central Africa region.
Any gain in stability in DRC would have a ”positive effect in neighbouring countries such as Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda,” he told the news magazine Focus in an interview to appear in its Monday edition.
Failed states generally exported conflict, terrorism and refugee crises, he warned.
Steinmeier said the German government saw no evidence that there would be an outbreak of violence in DRC after the polls.
”But no one can calculate this with ultimate certainty,” he said.
Germany is set to provide 780 of the 2 000-strong EU force in the DRC.
Steinmeier expressed doubt about whether Nato would mount a peace mission in the war-torn western Sudanese region of Darfur, saying peacekeepers there ought to remain under African command.
That appeared to differ from remarks by German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung to be reported on Sunday in the newspaper Welt am Sonntag. Saying, ”We won’t stand to one side,” Jung indicated he expected Germany to boost its present team of officers there.
He said existing parliamentary authority allowed up to 200 personnel to be sent to Darfur. Talks were under way with the African Union and Sudanese government to shape future peacekeeping operations, he told Die Welt, which released his remarks on Saturday.
After her talks with Mbeki, Merkel said only that everything necessary had to be done to ensure the United Nations could continue its Sudan involvement. The peaceful process had to be maintained. – Sapa-DPA