{The South African government insisted on Monday that relations with Rwanda were now “cordial” even though the two countries had not yet returned the 10 diplomats which were expelled by both sides over a year ago.
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South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said that relations were cordial because both ambassadors remained at their posts in their respective embassies.
In May last year South Africa expelled three Rwandan diplomats and one Burundian diplomat whom it linked to a raid on exiled Rwandan General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa’s Johannesburg home.
Rwanda retaliated by kicking out six South African envoys from Kigali.
This left just the two ambassadors as the sole diplomatic representatives of their countries in Kigali and Pretoria. That is still so.
The minister was asked whether full diplomatic ties had been restored, at a media briefing in Johannesburg today.
She said that the fact that the two ambassadors were still at their posts meant that diplomatic relations between the countries were cordial. She and her Rwandan counterpart Louise Mushikiwabo had had a “very nice dinner” last week in Addis Ababa and were working together closely as members of a special African Union committee which was trying to end the civil war in South Sudan.
“We have re-committed to keeping our diplomatic relations cordial,” Nkoana-Mashabane said, suggesting that the absence of all but the ambassadors from the two embassies was merely a technical matter.
She added, however, that the security agencies of both governments were still discussing the security issues between the two countries.
{{Source: Jacaranda FM}}
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