|
SA happy with progress in Zim
15/11/2007 12:00 - (SA)
Pretoria - South Africa is happy with the progress that has been made regarding efforts to resolve the problems currently facing Zimbabwe, says Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad.
President Thabo Mbeki was mandated by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) heads of state and government extra-ordinary summit held in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, in March this year to facilitate talks between the Zimbabwean government and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
In that light, Mr Pahad said the government believed it had been consistently working to meet the mandate handed out to SA at the SADC extraordinary summit.
Mr Pahad was addressing the media on the progress made by the International Relations, Peace and Security (IRPS) Cluster in the implementation of their Programme of Action (POA) and the consolidation of the African Agenda, in Cape Town, on Wednesday.
'SA to facilitate dialogue'
He cited as a reflection of the progress made, the unanimous acceptance by all relevant stakeholders in Zimbabwe, of the Constitutional Amendment Bill No 18, which sought to harmonise presidential, parliamentary and local government elections as from 2008.
Pahad said: "SA will continue to facilitate dialogue between the government and opposition parties, including representatives from civil society in order to resolve the remaining challenges facing Zimbabwe leading up to the 2008 general elections.
"Our primary focus remains ensuring an outcome that expresses the free will of the people of Zimbabwe as a critical element of opening avenues to tackle the serious socio-economic crisis."
He further expressed government's confidence that many of the outstanding issues that were being discussed would be successfully resolved to ensure that free and fair elections were held next year.
Finance ministers meet in Zambia
The deputy minister said: "We are focusing on ensuring an outcome that will determine that the free will of the people of Zimbabwe is expressed and that avenues to tackle the socio-economic challenges will be found."
Mr Pahad explained that SADC finance ministers had met in Zambia, where they reviewed the report by the SADC Executive Secretary Tomaz Augusto Salomao on the economic situation in Zimbabwe and what SADC could do to help the Zimbabweans emerge from that crisis.
"All the finance ministers have now returned to their capitals and after consultations with their capitals they will determine the next step.
"SA is quite happy with the progress being made in the facilitation efforts and we think even if there are some difficulties, the process has been placed on the right track," emphasised Pahad.
Regarding the progress with respect to the SADC Regional Economic Agenda, Pahad said the SADC had noted that there was considerable basis for declaring the SADC Free Trade Area by the time of the 2008 SADC Summit, which would be hosted by SA in July.
|
News
Zimbabwe Special Report
