South Africa will work to \u201ciron out wrinkles\u201d in its relationship with the US, and the absence of Washington\u2019s top diplomat from Group of 20 meetings in Johannesburg isn\u2019t \u201ca boycott,\u201d President Cyril Ramaphosa said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe will continue to find ways, avenues and means through which we can continue relating to each other,\u201d Ramaphosa told reporters in Johannesburg Thursday. Pretoria has resolved to use diplomatic processes to deal with issues that \u201cmay have appeared in our relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio snubbed this week\u2019s G-20 foreign ministers\u2019 meeting in South Africa in protest at what he said was an attempt by Pretoria to promote diversity, equity and inclusion and tackle climate change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US sent the charge d\u2019affaires, the current highest-ranking official in its South African embassy, in his place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rubio\u2019s decision came after US President Donald Trump falsely accused the South African authorities of seizing private land. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He later halted most aid to the country over its expropriation laws and what he said were \u201caggressive positions towards the United States and its allies\u201d \u2014 including accusing Israel of genocide in the International Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time as Ramaphosa made his remarks it was reported that he had extended an invitation on 15 January to Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy for a state visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US is also in a spat with Zelenskiy. In a social media post Wednesday, Trump said Zelenskiy had \u201cbetter move fast\u201d to reach a peace deal with Russia, denouncing him as \u201ca modestly successful comedian\u201d and \u201ca dictator.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His comments are an all-but-final rejection of Ukraine as a full partner in talks that Trump has initiated with Russia to end the war that began with President Vladimir Putin\u2019s full-scale invasion of his neighbour three years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Cyril Ramaphosa has responded to the United States’ absence at the G20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":811928,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1293,10849],"class_list":["post-813506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-cyril-ramaphosa","tag-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":813507,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813506\/revisions\/813507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}