José Eduardo dos Santos
John Kerry
Luanda (AFP) - US Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday praised oil-rich Angola's leadership role in efforts to solve long-drawn conflicts on the African continent.
"President (Jose Eduardo) dos Santos and Angola have provided important leadership and I want to thank you Angola for the leadership and participation... to solve conflicts that have gone on for too long," Kerry said on arrival in Luanda on the final leg of his African tour.
Kerry and dos Santos are scheduled to hold talks on Monday.
On his first major tour of Africa as secretary of state, Kerry is focusing on some of the continent's most brutal conflicts.
He landed in Luanda from Kinshasa on Sunday. He kicked off his tour last week in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
A State department official travelling with Kerry said Angola has been playing an "extraordinarily positive role" in attempts to solve several regional conflicts, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and in Central African Republic.
Dos Santos recently became the head of the International Contact Group for the Great Lakes region of Africa.
"He’s been very proactive in that leadership role in pulling the regional leaders together to work on a solution for DRC to keep that process moving forward," said the official.
Angola's seaside capital plays host to ever more rounds of peace talks aimed at ending conflicts in the Great Lakes region, South Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR).
Angola gave $10 million (seven million euros) to the CAR to pay public workers' salaries and has offered to help airlift future troops that might deploy to strife-torn central African country.
The US is one of the leading trading partners of Angola. Such US firms as General Electric, energy giant ConocoPhillips and oil companies Chevron and Exxon, have operations in Luanda.
AFP-Credits
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