Tokyo - South Africa's foreign minister has pressed the world's leading powers to discuss with Africa its crippling debt burden ahead of a Group of Eight summit in July.
The G8 powers should "not just decide whatever without having a dialogue with African countries", Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told the Japan Press Club.
She urged the leaders to discuss the debt with Algeria and South Africa, the two countries given a mandate by the Organisation of African Unity to promote the issue on behalf of the continent.
"We expect first the countries of the G8 to at least get the views of the two leaders that have been mandated to put Africa's case and then for them to decide what to do about it," the minister said.
Dlamini-Zuma said she had pressed Japan's Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and Foreign Minister Yohei Kono to put Africa's debt on the agenda of the G8, to be held from July 21 to July 23, in the southern island of Okinawa.
"Of course, we did not expect a definitive answer because Japan is one of the countries that are in the G8 summit, but obviously it is not the only country," she said.
South Africa expects Japan to consult other members of the G8 - Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Russia and the United States - before making a final decision.
The South African foreign minister was scheduled to leave for home later in the day after her three-day visit to Tokyo, ending a tour that included a trip to Beijing to prepare for a visit by President Jiang Zemin.
At a meeting in Cologne in June, the Group of Eight agreed on an expanded, accelerated initiative to provide debt relief to 40 of the world's most impoverished nations, mostly in Africa.
Financial commitments needed to implement the venture totalled about $27,5-billion (about R178,75-billion). - Sapa-AFP