Story by Oleen Ndori, Foreign Desk Editor
Government continues to explore ways of enhancing bilateral ties with different countries and organisations to propel national development.
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Professor Amon Murwira met with different envoys to the country in Harare this Thursday, where various issues of mutual interest took centre stage.
UNICEF Comptroller Ms Diane Kepler is in the country from New York with a view to look at existing partnerships with the government in the area of child and social protection clusters.
UNICEF representative in Zimbabwe Ms Etona Ekole pledged to continue collaborative efforts with Zimbabwe.
“I’m just grateful for having been received by the Honourable Minister and having received also colleagues who are visiting from headquarters as well as the regional office to look at UNICEF’s operations in Zimbabwe and we look forward to continued collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in various matters,” she said.
A Special Envoy for Algeria President Abdelmadjid Tebboune also met with Professor Murwira and thanked Zimbabwe for supporting their bid for the Chairmanship of the African Union Commission.
“We are here to present thanks to Zimbabwe for our support in our candidature. Also, we have to discuss what we can do in the future for the development of the two countries, we have a lot of history in the past.”
Palestine Ambassador to Zimbabwe His Excellency Tamer Almassri expressed gratitude to Zimbabwe for standing with his country in the ongoing war in the Middle East.
He said, “We discussed our bilateral relations as sister countries between Palestine and Zimbabwe and we exchanged the solidarity messages between our two countries, especially during the ongoing Israeli genocide against the Palestinian civilians and the Muslim people in the Gaza Strip and in all of Palestine. Also, I paid solidarity with the Republic of Zimbabwe led by His Excellency President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his colleagues and all the people against the illegal sanctions that we consider a kind of collective punishment and we agreed that we will continue our cooperation and coordination exchanging the political views and political consultation as comrades and as free countries who suffered from the occupation, oppression, double standards and who is working to guarantee a good future for our peoples.”
Minister Murwira said these engagements speak directly to the government’s foreign policy direction.
“Zimbabwe is a member of the United Nations. It has excellent relations with UNICEF and deep cooperation with UNICEF and in our meeting, we discussed various issues that make us go forward in helping the people of Zimbabwe and the region and indeed the people of the world in this kind of cooperation, making things work as a host country. We have welcomed His Excellency with a special message from His Excellency the President of Algeria. We held a very cordial meeting and we discussed several issues and in our discussions, we acknowledged the excellent relations that are between Algeria and Zimbabwe, but emphasised that we need to take these excellent relations into the economic sphere and scientific sphere.”
“We had a cordial meeting with His Excellency the Ambassador, Dr. Almasri. Our discussion centred on the state of our bilateral relations, which are excellent, but at the same time, we were able to express our support for Palestine and praise countries such as Ireland, Spain and Australia for recognising the state of Palestine as an independent state. This is a good move in terms of upholding the right to self-determination of the people of the State of Palestine. Zimbabwe remains principled in the support of the people of Palestine and condemns all forms of violence and oppression against the people of Palestine in support of an independent Palestinian state that lives alongside other states with pride and with a future that is guaranteed for its children, for generations and generations.”
The government has remained resolute in pursuing a friend-to-all and enemy-to-none foreign policy to develop and grow bilateral and multilateral ties.
