MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. African countries are interested in developing cooperation with Russia, and this cooperation is of a strategic nature, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting of the Council of Heads of Russian regions under the Foreign Ministry.
"We are certainly awaited in Africa. Our friends from the continent regularly tell us about it and we must meet these expectations. This direction is undoubtedly strategic for us. It is one of our key foreign policy priorities," Lavrov said.
The Russian top diplomat noted that the African continent is experiencing a "second awakening."
"From gaining political independence, they want to move toward managing their resources, their wealth, primarily in their national interests, while remaining open to international cooperation," he said.
"Africa is a continent of the future, with enormous wealth, comparable, as some believe, to that of Siberia, but that's for scientists to judge. In any case, these riches, until recently, were not used for the benefit of African peoples. Even after gaining political independence during decolonization, led by our country, the newly independent African states remained, and in many ways still are, economically and financially dependent on their former colonial powers for many decades," Lavrov said.