South Africa’s foreign affairs ministry called in US Ambassador Leo Brent Bozell III on \u200bTuesday for a third time over what it described as “undiplomatic conduct”, a \u200csenior government official told Reuters, but did not elaborate on what the conduct was.<\/p>\n
“We can confirm that we demarched Ambassador Bozell. The third demarche since he started his duties nine months ago,” \u200ba senior official at South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) told \u200bReuters late on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
A demarche is a formal diplomatic protest from one \u2060government to another.<\/p>\n
A State Department spokesperson told Reuters that Bozell went to DIRCO \u200bto discuss bilateral ties.<\/p>\n
“We are not interested in diplomatic manoeuvring, procedural delays or dialogue for \u200bdialogue’s sake,” the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n
Relations between the two countries have been strained by US President Donald Trump’s repeated false claims that white South Africans face systemic persecution.<\/p>\n
White South Africans are, on average, wealthier and more \u200blikely to be employed than Black South Africans. The government policies criticized by Trump \u200bare intended to address inequalities that persist from the apartheid era.<\/p>\n
Bozell, a conservative activist and writer who \u200carrived \u2060in Pretoria as Trump’s envoy in February, was first called in within weeks of taking up the post over remarks that DIRCO said undermined South Africa’s judiciary and historical context.<\/p>\n
In recent interviews with local media, the ambassador has adopted a firmer and impatient tone, \u200bsaying that Pretoria had \u200bnot adequately addressed Washington’s \u2060concerns and that further pressure could follow.<\/p>\n
Two weeks ago, the US unveiled visa restrictions on some South Africans.<\/p>\n
South Africa has maintained a \u200bwillingness to engage in talks, but said its sovereignty must be \u200brespected and \u2060that it would not compromise on domestic priorities such as addressing historical injustices.<\/p>\n
“The issues related to the bilateral relations between the two countries are a subject of ongoing discussions. There is commitment from both \u2060sides \u200bto resolve the outstanding matters,” the DIRCO official said.<\/p>\n
The \u200bState Department spokesperson said: “The ball is now squarely in the government of South Africa’s court to outline the \u200brelationship it wants with the United States.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Africa’s foreign affairs ministry called in US Ambassador Leo Brent Bozell III on \u200bTuesday for a third time over what it described as “undiplomatic conduct”, a \u200csenior government official told Reuters, but did not elaborate on what the conduct was. “We can confirm that we demarched Ambassador Bozell. The third demarche since he started […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19838,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"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","show_comment_section":"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":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"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":[2362,33,30],"tags":[4004,4866,122],"class_list":["post-22186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-southern-africa","tag-department-of-international-relations-and-cooperation-dirco","tag-leo-brent-bozell-iii","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22186","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22187,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22186\/revisions\/22187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}