Egypt follows up on preparations for 2nd Russia-Africa Summit in July

CAIRO – 16 June 2023: Egypt has followed up on preparations for holding the second Russia-Africa Summit, scheduled to bring leaders of African countries and Russia in July in St. Petersburg.

Egypt’s Ambassador to Moscow Nazih El-Nagari met on Friday with Ambassador Oleg Ozerov, Head of the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, to follow up on preparations of the summit.

The meeting took place on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) taking place from 14 to 17 June to focus on key issues on the global economic agenda.

During the meeting, the ambassadors discussed several aspects related to preparations for the summit and also exchanged visions on horizons of African-Russian cooperation.

The Russia-Africa Summit is the most prominent and largest event in Russian–African relations, which aims to achieve mutually beneficial partnership in the face of the ongoing challenges.

The summit seeks to promote efforts of enhancing comprehensive cooperation between the two sides in the political, security, economic, scientific, cultural and humanitarian fields.

The summit next month will be “the most important foreign policy event in Russia-Africa relations and give a new impetus to Russia’s wide-ranging relations with the countries of the continent in the long term,” the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said.

The First Russia-Africa Summit took place in October 2019 in Russian Sochi with the attendance of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who co-chaired the summit along with his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin.

 

The summit, held under the motto: “For Peace, Security and Development” identified priority fields of economic cooperation to be achieved within years.

A closing declaration adopted at the end of the Summit outlined goals and objectives for the future development of relations between Russian and the African nations in various fields.

African peace mission

The summit will be also held while an African joint delegation is currently making a visit to both Russia and Ukraine in a bid to help the two countries settle their crisis, ongoing since February 2022.

Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli and Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry arrived in Kiev early today as part of the delegation of the joint African initiative.

Madbouli is heading Egypt’s delegation on behalf of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in a visit that will also include St. Petersburg.

The delegation is set to meet with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday to present the African initiative’s elements to settle the crisis and a press conference is scheduled to be held thereafter.

The African mission comes while African countries have been suffering from the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war, which has caused prices of commodities and energy to soar and disrupted global supply chains.