Uganda cuts military ties with DPRK Sam Kutesa
Sam Kutesa

Sam Kutesa

ENTEBBE. — Uganda on Sunday announced that it is breaking its military cooperation with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea over its continued nuclear proliferation.

Sam Kutesa, Minister of Foreign Affairs told reporters during the visit of South Korean President Park Geun-hye that Uganda will not cooperate with North Korea over its failure to respect the UN sanctions.

“We are disengaging from our cooperation with North Korea as a result of the UN sanctions. Our policy is that we don’t support nuclear proliferation,” Kutesa said in Entebbe, 40km south of the capital Kampala.

He said Uganda supports nuclear energy production for peaceful purposes like medicine and energy. The South Korean President is in Uganda as part of her African tour that will take her to neighbouring Kenya. She has already been to Ethiopia where the African Union is headquartered. In a related development, South Korea’s president on Friday urged African leaders to support international efforts to denuclearise North Korea.

Speaking to the African Union in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, President Park said that she wants African “cooperation in urging North Korea to give up its nuclear programme”.

She also said her government would work with African countries to combat violent extremism. President Park said she was offering her country to be an “African companion” in development matters and presented a blueprint for Africa-South Korea relations that she hoped would boost trade, education and cultural cooperation.

“We will share various development experiences learned from our own trials and errors over the last half century,” president Park said as she outlined her country’s policy toward Africa.

“What Korea genuinely wishes to share with Africa, above all, is the ‘we can do it’ attitude . . . Korea hopes to walk alongside Africa looking in the same direction.”

One of her proposed schemes is a two-way youth exchange programme in which 6 000 young Africans will be offered education and training opportunities in Africa or Korea and 4 000 Korean volunteers will be sent to Africa.

African Union Commission chair Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said Africa should look up to South Korea, which gained independence at the same time as many African countries.

President Park’s visit to the African Union last week, was the first for a South Korean leader. — Xinhua/AP/HR.

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