Hopewell Radebe
7 November 2008
Johannesburg — THE economic benefit SA derives from bilateral relations with the US is already the envy of many developing countries, and will be even better under the administration of president-elect Barack Obama, foreign affairs director-general Ayanda Ntsaluba said yesterday.
Commenting on the future of SA's relations with the US after Obama's election victory on Tuesday, he said the existing relations between the two countries started blossoming under former president Bill Clinton's administration and grew stronger under President George Bush's administration.
"We've witnessed successful bilateral relations with both the Democrats and the Republicans, which saw our tourism and trade thriving to a point of tilting the trade surplus in our favour.
"And even though we differed fundamentally at times on how to resolve world issues, we maintained open lines of political engagement with the Bush administration," he said.
Ntsaluba said more than the psychological boost to Africans , Obama was likely to redirect the US from looking at the world through the security lences and confrontation to dialogue and a multilateral approach.
When asked about the United Nations-backed conference on the Great Lakes region being held in Nairobi today , Ntsaluba said the government received the invitation only yesterday - too late for President Kgalema Motlanthe and Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini- Zuma to attend.
However, due to the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the eastern Congo and the security threat to the country's young democracy, SA will ensure that it is represented .
Ntsaluba said Defence Minister Charles Nqakula, who is still the designate facilitator in Burundi, left SA for Nairobi yesterday.
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2008 Business Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
