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DAKAR, Oct. 4 (AP) Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba promised his troubled country would do everything it could to send more food to Africa as he was in Senegal this week. Started the visit to the African continent.
After a meeting with Senegal’s president and foreign minister in Dakar on Monday, Kuleba said Ukraine would send “vessels full of seeds” to Africa.
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“We will do our best to continue to export Ukrainian grain to Africa and the world to ensure food security,” Kuleba told a joint news conference with his Senegalese counterpart, Essata Tarsal.
Despite the ongoing war, Senegalese President McKee Sall, who is now the head of the African Union, has urged Russia and Ukraine to resume food exports.
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Many African countries rely heavily on food imports from Russia and Ukraine. Amid market shortages, Russia has sought to paint the West as villains, blaming the West for rising food prices.
Meanwhile, Western leaders have accused the Kremlin of cynically using food as a weapon to wage an imperial war of conquest.
So far, Africa has remained neutral on Ukraine: some 25 African countries abstained or did not vote at all on a UN resolution condemning the Ukrainian war earlier this year. Senegal was one of the countries abstaining, and its president told the UN General Assembly last month that Africa “does not want to be the breeding ground for a new cold war”.
Despite these neutral positions, Ukraine’s foreign minister said he wanted to deepen the country’s ties with Africa.
“I came to Africa not against anyone,” Kuleba said on Monday. “We have to strengthen our cooperation. Our future depends on the relationships we build and what happens every day.”
The Ukrainian minister criticized the Russian statement.
“If Senegalese listened to Russian propaganda, they might be surprised. Russia wants people to believe (the war is because) Ukraine wants to be a member of NATO. Finland wants to be a member. Yet Russia is not attacking it,” he said .
“Russia also believes that we are one nation. That’s not true,” Kuleba said.
“We speak different languages. We have different cultures and different people. If someone tries to impose a doctrine on you, you reject it.” (The Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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