South African President Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s coalition government has been rocked by plans to grant visa-free access to Ukrainian diplomats and government officials.<\/p>\n
Home Affairs minister, Leon Schreiber, who is from a different party to the president, announced the deal on Sunday, describing Ukraine a “valued ally”.<\/p>\n
But the Presidency says Schreiber jumped the gun and made the announcement before it was officially authorised by Ramaphosa.<\/p>\n
His African National Congress party (ANC) and Schreiber\u2019s party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), have sharply differed over the country\u2019s relationship with Russia.<\/p>\n
DA leader, John Steenhuisen, has criticised Ramaphosa for calling Vladimir Putin a \u201cvaluable ally and friend\u201d at the recent BRICS summit.<\/p>\n
The party has previously criticised Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Ramaphosa\u2019s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, said the president\u2019s reaffirmation of Russia did not mean SA opposed another country.<\/p>\n
\u201cSouth Africa has also been unwavering in advocating for a peace process [between Moscow and Kyiv] that includes the full participation of both countries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While South Africa has a policy of non-alignment, the ANC has strong historical ties with Russia.<\/p>\n
International Relations Minister, Ronald Lamola, on Monday hosted his Ukrainian counterpart and said the visa agreement between the two countries is yet to be concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s coalition government has been rocked by plans to grant visa-free access to Ukrainian diplomats and government officials. Home Affairs minister, Leon Schreiber, who is from a different party to the president, announced the deal on Sunday, describing Ukraine a “valued ally”. But the Presidency says Schreiber jumped the gun and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13856,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":8,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Africa News"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,1129],"tags":[2581,218,1293,3402,122],"class_list":["post-13961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-security","tag-african-national-congress-party-anc","tag-cyril-ramaphosa","tag-democratic-alliance-da","tag-leon-schreiber","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}