South Africa remains open to talks with the United States on areas of disagreement, including foreign investment rules on Black employment and ownership, Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said.
Lamola said Pretoria was surprised by the latest U.S. visa restrictions on South Africans but would not engage in a “tit-for-tat war” with Washington, given the importance of bilateral economic relations.
He made the remarks in an interview on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, saying the two countries had been discussing ways to accommodate new U.S. entrants into South Africa’s mining sector and other issues.
According to him, progress was being made in the discussions before U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced visa restrictions on South Africans, citing concerns over South Africa’s laws and policies.
“South Africa remains open to engage with the U.S. administration on all the issues that they have put on the table,” Lamola said.
He described the United States as an important strategic partner, adding that South Africa remained a “predictable and reliable” partner.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has criticised South Africa over several policies, including measures aimed at addressing racial inequality, which Trump says discriminate against the country’s white population.
Lamola, however, said Pretoria would continue engaging Washington despite what he described as the unpredictability of the current U.S. administration.
“You can’t be confident of anything with the current administration, and it’s not only Pretoria. I think all countries of the world, the friends and foes of the U.S., view it the same,” he said.
Washington is also pressing Pretoria over its land reform policies and South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Lamola described the U.S. resettlement programme for white Afrikaners as “race-based” and questioned their designation as refugees, noting that some of those who had left South Africa continued to visit the country.
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He said, however, that Pretoria would neither stop nor interfere with South Africans who chose to participate in the programme.
On South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, Lamola said the legal proceedings should be allowed to run their course.
“The case has to have a life of its own,” he said, adding that the court should decide the matter and that international law should serve as an “equaliser amongst nations, big and small.”
The U.S. announced visa restrictions on Sept. 15, with its ambassador to South Africa describing the measures as “only the first step in a series of escalatory measures” and saying the time for endless dialogue had passed.
Lamola rejected the position, saying diplomacy required continued dialogue.
“If you can’t dialogue and you want to declare that dialogue has run its course, you are in the wrong profession — you are not a diplomat,” he said.
He added that only Washington could determine whether relations between the two countries would recover.
Reuters
