Plans by the United States to establish a new Africa Command (Africom) on the continent next year are fraying relations with some African countries, including South Africa.
Some analysts believe that South Africa is leading moves to prevent an Africom presence in Southern Africa and others believe wider moves are afoot to keep it out of the whole continent.
The tensions broke the surface this week when Eric Bost, the outspoken US ambassador to South Africa, complained that Mosiuoa Lekota, the defence minister, was not responding to embassy requests to meet General Kip Ward, the recently nominated first commander of Africom.
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Ward is in South Africa to take part in a high-level seminar on Africom being conducted by the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation.
'This fact is made more unfortunate in light of the recent announcement' He was hoping to meet Lekota while in the country but this now seems unlikely.
"We have, over the course of the past two months, endeavoured to secure a meeting between General Ward and Minister Lekota in a variety of ways, both formal and informal," Bost said in an interview. "Unfortunately, to my knowledge, we have not had any response to these efforts.
"This fact is made more unfortunate in light of the recent announcement of General Ward's nomination to head the new Africa Command."
Lekota's spokesperson, Sam Mkhwanazi, said that the issue of the meeting had been dealt with when Bost and Jendayi Frazer, the US assistant secretary of state for Africa, met Lekota in Cape Town last month.
But US officials said that, although Bost and Frazer had again asked Lekota to meet Ward, no meeting had been arranged.
African suspicions about US intentions for Africom were evident this week when Theresa Whelan, the US deputy assistant defence secretary, addressed the Centre for International Policy Studies at the University of Pretoria.
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