Conversation with President of Burundi Evariste Ndayishimiye

Conversation with President of Burundi Evariste Ndayishimiye

President Vladimir Putin held a conversation with Chairperson of the African Union, President of the Republic of Burundi Evariste Ndayishimiye. Taking part in the meeting on the Russian side were Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Maxim Oreshkin, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office – Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov, Russian Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Burundi Sergei Chernenko, Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov, Head of the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare Anna Popova, Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Borisenko, Deputy Defence Minister Vasily Osmakov, and Director General of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Bakanov. * * * President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President, colleagues, friends, Today, we have spent the entire day together. I would like to thank you for your significant contribution to the success of our summit. We are building a serious, long-term relationship with the African Union, where you are currently holding the chairmanship. As you know, we have supported your aspiration for the African Union to become a full member of the G20. Our bilateral relations are developing well, and our ties continue to grow stronger. We can discuss what further steps might be taken to ensure that our economic cooperation, alongside our political engagement, helps advance our shared plans for strengthening these long-standing bilateral ties. Next year, we will mark the 65th anniversary of diplomatic relations between our countries. I am also aware, Mr President, that a ceremony was held yesterday to confer upon you the title of Honorary Doctor of the Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia. Please accept my warmest congratulations on this occasion. Chairman of the African Union, President of the Republic of Burundi Evariste Ndayishimiye (retranslated): Thank you very much, dear friend, for this opportunity. Thank you for inviting us to this summit. This meeting has confirmed that Russia wants to move forward together with Africa. As I have said, you have stood with us since the beginning of our struggle for decolonisation, supporting us in our quest for independence. Today we are in a different era – an era of development, and we are very grateful to Russia for its support. Thank you for supporting us in this new phase – the phase of liberation, the pursuit for economic autonomy for African countries. All African countries understand that we have opportunities, but we lack the capital to get everything started. Because we need a solid framework for this. What is that framework? It is international plans. We would like to thank Russia once again for supporting our bid to become a full member of the UN Security Council and our aspiration to join the G20. We will continue in this spirit, hoping that Africa will achieve a strong position on the international stage, enabling us to advance our social and economic spheres. As I have said, we have opportunities, we have natural resources and capital, we have a very dynamic young population and, in principle, we have the finances. What we lack is finance and technology to create basic infrastructure – in transport, in energy, in digital systems. We do not have all this at present. But I believe that together we can move forward. You have such capital, and we hope that at this new stage, we will be able to cooperate and to see how we can invest more and build a mutually beneficial partnership. We have a great wealth of natural resources, and we need capital to process them and create value chains. The last time we met, I told you about our projects – socioeconomic projects in particular. Yes, we faced some difficulties: at that time the West imposed sanctions against us – there was Western interference. We continue to suffer from this. We have budgetary problems and, in particular, we cannot, receive funding from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. That is why I asked for assistance with chemical fertilisers, and I would like to repeat that request once again. We also asked for help in protecting our institutions. You can see that we are still under threat. We are in close proximity to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and you know that there is a conflict underway in its eastern regions.