South Africa is at the centre of a major international row over the decision by parliamentarians of the European Union (EU) to bar two Zimbabwean cabinet ministers from taking part in a joint African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP)-EU parliamentary assembly in Brussels.
Although Belgium allowed the Zimbabwean ministers to enter the country, the group of EU parliamentarians attending the joint assembly - due to start on Monday - decided they would not be allowed on the premises of the EU.
This is in line with a visa ban on senior officials of the government of President Robert Mugabe.
Both sides met on Saturday in a bid to avert a boycott of the event by the 78-nation ACP delegation.
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Bid to avert a boycott of the event The South African delegation holds the view that Zimbabwean ministers should be able to attend international events. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the foreign minister, said last week that South Africa would work to have international sanctions against Zimbabwe lifted.
Frene Ginwala, the speaker of the national assembly, said from her home in Cape Town on Saturday that the deadlock in Brussels was not about Zimbabwe but about the principle of the European parliamentary delegation deciding unilaterally about the attendance of certain members when decisions should be taken jointly by the ACP-EU assembly.
"They can't unilaterally take these kinds of decisions because it is a joint assembly," Ginwala said.
It was the responsibility of the hosts - the European parliament - to come up with an alternative venue if they were not prepared to allow the Zimbabweans on their premises. She said there were no provisions in the joint assembly's rules to exclude anyone.
"It's normal international practice that if you are hosting an international gathering of this kind you cannot cherry-pick who you want to be there," she said.
'The attitude of the European parliament is unacceptable'
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