South Africa will sign on Tuesday a military defense framework agreement with Portugal, a founding member of NATO, which establishes closer relations with Pretoria, a diplomatic source told Lusa on Monday.
Portuguese Ambassador to South Africa José Costa Pereira said the agreement would be signed in Pretoria, the country’s capital, between Defense Minister and veterans of the South African armed forces Tandi Modize and her Portuguese counterpart Helena Carreiras during the first official meeting between Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and the President of the South African Republic by Cyril Ramaphosa,
“This is really a defense agreement, a framework agreement that sets the parameters for a closer relationship, again, on this issue, which is very specific to defense,” he stressed.
The former Permanent Representative of Portugal to the EU Political and Security Committee, since March in South Africa, stressed that the new bilateral document “has been discussed for several years to find the right texts to meet also the right occasion to sign it.”
“A defense deal is important to South Africa right now, it is important to determine its own policy, because South Africa, as you know, has often been accused of moving closer to Russia in the context of that country’s aggression against Ukraine. “At this point, South Africa’s signing of a bilateral agreement with a founding member of NATO is certainly the signal that South Africa wants to send to the rest of the world through its own policy of international strategic balances,” he said.
According to the diplomat, the new framework military-defense agreement, in which there is still no timetable, will allow Portugal “to have a field here for expanding a number of exchanges, a number of exchanges of views on issues that are important both for themselves and for, wants to us”.
In this sense, among the possible “exchanges” with South Africa, despite its declared policy of “non-alignment” with the United States and NATO countries in Russia’s war in Ukraine, new military relations “may be missions, exchanges of missions, support for international missions and discussion in terms of defense of what is happening in Africa.
“We have an important contribution of Portugal in the field of peace and security in Africa, South Africa also has, we have interests too, just mention the example of Mozambique, where there is a European training mission for Mozambican forces, in which 60% of this European mission consists of Portuguese armed forces, South Africa is also an integral part, a core part of the mission of SADC, the regional organization in Cabo Delgado, so there are a number of areas of common interest where we can work together,” he explained.
“The agreement is only the first step, it is what allows us to be a platform that we now have, perhaps more weight and more scope in the future,” he stressed.
José Costa Pereira also told Luza that the fact that each of the two countries has military ambitions within international organizations in an African context “is immediately a good starting point” for what Lisbon aims to achieve with the African National Congress government. (ANC), in power since 1994 in South Africa.
“That is, if Africa is an important point for us in foreign policy, if we have relationships or missions of a similar nature in the African context, if South Africa is an important country because it acts internationally at certain levels, it is clear that for Portugal, we are fully interested in at least sharing information, sharing experience, better understanding where South Africa wants and can go, and it is important for us to be aware of this and act accordingly in defense of our interests, within the framework of the interest that represents our community.” , the Ambassador of Portugal in Pretoria stressed in a statement to Luce.
From the point of view of José Costa Pereira, “the closer we are to the South African authorities, the more exchange we have with them, the better we can also protect our community, the better we can, together with the South Africans, make them understand the role that the Portuguese community represents here, in South Africa.”
On Tuesday, Marcelo Rebelo de Souza will be received with state honors at the Presidential Palace of the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the country’s capital, by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as part of the Portugal Day celebrations. in South Africa.
This Monday, the President of the Republic began his four-day official visit to South Africa, Cape Town, with a ceremony aboard the Portuguese Navy patrol ship NRP Setúbal, where the Harpoon submarine also moored since Sunday morning. “.
The visit was attended by Minister of Defense Elena Carreiras, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces General José Nunez da Fonseca and Chief of the General Staff of the Navy Admiral Enrique Gouveia e Melo.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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