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Mozambique: Nyusi meets Comoros President – photos
4:47 CAT | 05 Aug 2021
All photos: Page officielle de la Présidence de l'Union des Comores
President of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, met President of the Union of the Comoros, Azali Assoumani, in Maputo on Wednesday, during the latter’s working visit to the country. The armed violence in Cabo Delgado was among the topics discussed, Lusa reports.
“Basically, the President of the Comoros came to understand how Mozambique is facing Covid-19 and the situation of terrorism,” the Mozambican head of state declared after the meeting with his counterpart.
The north of Mozambique, affected by terrorism, shares the Indian Ocean with the Comoros Islands, and the relationship between the two states has already been identified by experts and scholars as important for the protection of the Mozambique Channel.
President Nyusi said that it was concluded at the meeting between the two heads of state that it was necessary to create working groups to design cooperation instruments, with an emphasis on economy and transport, taking into account the proximity of the two territories.
For President Azali Assoumani, cooperation was important, proximity meaning that “the problem of one is also a problem of the other”.
“We have cooperation at the level of African institutions, such as the African Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), but it is at the bilateral level that the two countries can solve their problems, because the problems of one are the problems of the other,” President Azali Assoumani stressed.
During the meeting, Presidents Nyusi and Assoumani agreed to strengthen cooperation between the two countries in various areas.
“A simple working visit, but at the same time, we have to move forward. Life cannot stop. We have moved forward in aspects of cooperation and it is in this sense that we will organize working groups, with a view to preparing the necessary expedient for our cooperation in the economic areas, specifically in the agriculture, tourism, fishing and transport, but also in the social areas, such as education, health and culture, because our cultures are similar and there can be cultural exchange, and also in the area of defence and security,” O País quotes the Mozambican president as saying.
Comorian diaspora in Pemba
In turn, the President of the Comoros said that bilateral cooperation could find joint solutions to solve the problems that concern the two countries.
“Because the problems of Mozambique are also problems of the Comoros. In the relationship that exists between the two, all we hope is that this will translate into sharing the good things and not the bad things. Together we will fight for the issue of security, so that Mozambique effectively finds security as before,” said President Assoumani.
Azali Assoumani said that the Comoros and Mozambique would do their utmost, from now, to prepare to strengthen joint cooperation in the identified areas.
“As His Excellency [Filipe Nyusi] said, we have a very important Comorian diaspora in Pemba – Pemba is closer – so this is already a basis for Mozambicans to go to Moroni, in Comoros, and, from there, strengthen and enhance the relations between the two countries.”
In general, the visit of President Azali Assoumani to the country served to exchange views on the revitalisation of bilateral cooperation between the Republic of Mozambique and the Union of the Comoros.
Also while in Maputo, President Assoumani also held a meeting with Idah Pswarayi-Riddioug, World Bank Country Director for Mozambique, Madagascar, Comoros, Mauritius, and Seychelles.
Situated in the Indian Ocean at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel, the Comoros archipelago is made up of four islands: Grande-Comore, Anjouan, Mohéli and Mayotte. The independence of the Union of the Comoros was decreed in 1975, with the island of Mayotte remaining under French administration.
Mozambique has, since 2017, been facing an armed insurgency in Cabo Delgado province, in the north of the country, with some attacks claimed by the radical Islamic State group.
Source: Lusa / O País / Page officielle de la Présidence de l'Union des Comores
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