MOSCOW, August 7 (Itar-Tass) - Russia praises Ghana’s worthy and active role in developing ways to settle different conflicts on the African continent, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
After the talks with Ghana Foreign Minister Hannah Tetteh on Wednesday, Lavrov said: “We’re convinced that Africans themselves should play a leading role in these processes under the auspices of the African Union and sub-regional associations while the international community seeks to maintain Africans, help them strengthen peace-making efforts and ensure legal framework within the U.N. Security Council.”
The talks focused on investment cooperation, primarily in the oil, gas and energy sectors, and in other fields, including mineral survey. “We talked about the need to start the work of the inter-governmental commission on trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation. We agreed to take actions to make it work in early next year,” Lavrov said.
Scientific and cultural cooperation was also in the centre of the talks. “Over 300,000 citizens of Ghana studied in Russia. Now over 400 Ghana citizens are studying in our country within different formats. Since this academic year the number of state scholarships has increased by 50 percent,” Lavrov said.
The ministers also agreed to continue inter-ministerial consultations. “This is the useful mechanism, which gives an opportunity to work jointly within the U.N. and on other international platforms,” Lavrov stressed, adding that, “Our cooperation is based on the U.N. Charter.”