Washington DC, Friday. US President Barack Obama will not meet individually with any of the 50 African heads of state invited to attend a White House summit next month, a State Department official said on Wednesday.
Choosing just a few of the visitors to hold one-to-one talks with Mr Obama would be “a very difficult decision,” Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a teleconference with reporters.
Instead of holding selective discussions, Mr Obama intends to spend “a tremendous amount of quality time” with all the heads of state taking part in the August 6 summit, Ms Thomas-Greenfield added.
The US president plans to take part in each of the three summit sessions in addition to hosting an August 5 White House dinner for the African leaders and their spouses, she noted. The lack of one-to-one sessions with the US leader is bound to come as a bit of a disappointment to the visitors, not least Kenya, which has been keen to extend an invite to Obama to visit the homeland of his father, who was Kenyan.
Kenya’s Foreign minister Amina Mohamed said in an interview in Washington on Wednesday that the decision to forgo a Kenyatta-Obama meeting comes as no surprise.
“We were consulted all along the way in the planning” for the summit, Ms Mohamed told this correspondent on the sidelines of a “Doing Business in Kenya” conference in the US capital city. “It was a very inclusive approach.” She noted that President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya will be able to hold talks in Washington with many other African leaders while also focusing on three key elements in Kenya’s relationship with the US.
Enhanced cooperation with the US on security matters is Kenya’s top priority, Ms Mohamed said, adding, “We want to take it to another level.” Attracting more American investment to Kenya will be another objective of Mr Kenyatta’s first visit to the US as head of state, the minister said.
Source: http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/News/-No-one-to-one–between-Obama-and-visiting-African/-/1840340/2381440/-/o98nvhz/-/index.html
