Burundi, Russia To Sign Agreements On Energy At Russia-Africa Summit - Burundian Foreign Minister Albert Shingiro

Muhammad Irfan Published May 30, 2023 | 07:07 PM

Burundi and Russia will sign agreements on energy, education, healthcare and other areas at the Russia-Africa summit in July, Burundian Foreign Minister Albert Shingiro said on Tuesday

BUJUMBURA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 30th May, 2023) Burundi and Russia will sign agreements on energy, education, healthcare and other areas at the Russia-Africa summit in July, Burundian Foreign Minister Albert Shingiro said on Tuesday.

"We mentioned, in particular, the agreements that we are preparing for signing at the second Russia-Africa summit, which will take place in July in St. Petersburg. These will be agreements on a variety of topics. They cover education, healthcare, energy, jurisprudence and also the peaceful use of nuclear energy," Shingiro said after a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The Burundian minister also noted that the sides had discussed relations between Russian and Burundi as a whole, including the progress they had achieved and the challenges the country faces.

"Naturally, we talked about global challenges, in particular the conflict in Ukraine.

For our part, we assured that Burundi is in favor of solutions, not problems. We chose a position of neutrality, of non-alignment," he said.

Lavrov, in turn, added that Moscow highly values Burundi's neutral stance on Ukrainian conflict.

"We appreciate Burundi's balanced position and a good understanding of the reasons behind what is happening. These reasons are rooted in the West's use of the Kiev regime to create threats to Russian security directly on our borders and to destroy the legitimate rights of people who want to remain associated with the Russian language and Russian culture," Lavrov said.

The first Russia-Africa summit took place in the Russian resort city of Sochi from October 23-24, 2019. It was followed by the Russia-Africa economic forum. This year, both the second summit and the economic forum are due to be held in Saint Petersburg from July 26-29.