MOSCOW, March 1. /TASS/. The African track is becoming increasingly important for Russia's foreign policy, Russian Ambassador-at-Large Oleg Ozerov, who heads the secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, told journalists.

"The African continent is becoming one of the priorities of Russian foreign policy. Now we see that, after the second [Russia-Africa] summit, which our President [Vladimir Putin] called a breakthrough in his address to the Federal Assembly yesterday, has allowed us to move forward to [undertaking] systematic work for building long-term strategic cooperation with the African continent," he said.

The day before, Putin said that the African continent is increasingly asserting its interests and exercising its right to genuine sovereignty. "We sincerely support all of these aspirations," Putin emphasized.