Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s talks with Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation, and Communities of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau Fatumata Jau

Photo: MFA

Press release on Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s talks with Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation, and Communities of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau Fatumata Jau.

On July 16, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held talks in Moscow with Guinea-Bissau’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Communities, Fatumata Jau who is in Russia on a working visit.

During the talks, Moscow and Bissau’s shared commitment to further strengthening Russian–Bissau cooperation across the political, trade, economic, humanitarian, and other fields was reaffirmed. The ministers also discussed prospects for expanding business ties and implementing joint projects in the energy sector, mineral mining and processing, and agriculture.

The two ministers discussed key regional and international issues, with particular focus on developments in Africa and efforts to resolve regional conflicts. They underscored the primacy of political and diplomatic means of conflict resolution on the African continent, emphasising that Africans should play the leading role, with the support of the international community. The ministers also reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthening coordination within the United Nations and other multilateral forums.

Particular attention was devoted to preparations for the Third Russia–Africa Summit, which is scheduled to take place in Moscow this October.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement and answers to media questions at a joint news conference following talks with Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Communities of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau Fatumata Jau

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to once again welcome Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Communities of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau Fatumata Jau to Moscow. We held a substantive and candid exchange of views on key bilateral, global, and regional issues.

We share a positive assessment of Russia-Guinea-Bissau relations and concur that they have historically been based on friendship, mutual respect, and support that date back to the heroic quest of the people of Guinea-Bissau for independence. We reaffirmed our commitment to further strengthening mutually beneficial cooperation across a wide range of areas and outlined specific steps towards this end, which I hope we will implement in the near future.

In this context, we discussed in detail the trade and economic portion of our relations and came to an agreement that, despite a certain increase in trade over the past year, the absolute figures remain unsatisfactory and do not reflect the potential of Russia and the Republic of Guinea-Bissau. It is important that we continue joint efforts to further expand economic cooperation. To this end, we will promote business cooperation in areas such as developing mineral resources, geological prospecting, energy, and fisheries. In this context, our Bissau-Guinean friends confirmed their willingness to facilitate the operation of Russian companies, including RUSAL, which is widely engaged in the Guinean market creating new jobs and generating additional national budget revenue.

Minister Fatumata Jau put forward the idea of additionally drafting, signing and ensuring the entry into force of a number of laws that would provide guarantees for business activities and streamline other areas of cooperation.

One of the ideas put forward by Minister Fatumata Jau today was to plan and hold a Russia-Guinea-Bissau business forum. We agreed that each side would submit proposals on ways to have this forum focus on mutually promising areas. I believe it is a good idea. We will work on it.

Our cooperation in the humanitarian sphere, including the training of Bissau-Guinean specialists at Russian higher education institutions, is making strides. Recently, we increased the student quota allocated by our Government and can increase it even more.

We are grateful to our colleagues for providing detailed information about the current situation in Guinea-Bissau, the measures taken by the country’s leadership to ensure domestic stability, and preparations for general elections in December 2026. We wish Guinea-Bissau every success in holding them, which will help consolidate society and create proper conditions for the country to move forward.

We discussed a number of urgent priorities, including in the context of a trend towards strengthening multipolar democratic principles in international affairs and ensuring compliance with the full body of principles enshrined in the UN Charter, understood as an indivisible and interdependent whole.

We emphasised the importance of respecting the right of all peoples to choose their own path of development - a right our Western colleagues are attempting to obstruct, as they are still unable to come to terms with the fact that more than 500 years of dominance in international affairs have come to an end and will not return.

We will closely coordinate our efforts within the United Nations, which adopted a number of important strategic resolutions last year, including the need to recognise Westerns slave-owning practices as the most serious crime against humanity, and the resolution to proclaim December 14 as the International Day Against Colonialism.

There is a shared understanding that these resolutions must not remain mere slogans, but should encourage practical steps to eliminate the remnants of colonial practices which continue to exist in the political sphere as well. Not all UN General Assembly resolutions on granting independence to colonial countries and peoples have been implemented which is particularly salient in the economic sphere, where Africa, with its vast resources, receives virtually no added value from the raw materials which are exported to Western countries, where the bulk of profits is generated.

We placed special emphasis on Africa, where pockets of instability persist, focusing primarily on the vast Sahara-Sahel region. Our common view is that regional crises and the changes that are taking place in the countries of the region must be addressed by African states themselves, without attempts to impose external solutions on them. In this context, Russia firmly reiterated its support for any efforts to normalise relations between the Economic Community of West African States, on the one hand, and Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, on the other hand. We strongly believe that these four countries should fully engage in the African Union’s activities, although some elements are attempting to obstruct this work. I am convinced, however, that the current leadership of the African Union, with which I spoke literally last week during my African tour, will pursue a policy of consolidation rather than division within the African Union. This serves the interests of all countries without exception.

We discussed preparations for the third Russia-Africa Summit. My counterpart confirmed that the President of Guinea-Bissau will take part in the event. We will be happy to welcome a representative delegation from Guinea-Bissau to Moscow.

I believe our discussion was highly productive. We have outlined a specific roadmap that we will implement.

Question: There are just a few months to go before the third Russia-Africa Summit. At the first summit in 2019, we laid the political foundation; at the second, we discussed food and security. What major logistical and economic breakthroughs should we expect from the upcoming meeting in Moscow?

Sergey Lavrov: We will discuss breakthroughs after the summit. We are not working for the sake of appearances; we are working to ensure that our relations become more stable and produce concrete results, primarily in the material sphere and humanitarian cooperation, in the best interests of the peoples and economies of African countries and the Russian Federation.

The principles underlying our cooperation include mutual benefit and respect. As you pointed out, this summit symbolises a new stage in terms of moving towards specific areas and developing specific mutually beneficial projects. We have sought to align the summit agenda as closely as possible with the decisions adopted by the African Union regarding the continent’s long-term development priorities. There is a document known as Agenda 2063 which is timed to coincide with the centenary of the Organisation of African Unity, which preceded the African Union. This Agenda contains many important points that we want to incorporate into our programmes of cooperation with Africa.

The priority topics to be discussed at the third summit will include ICT, artificial intelligence, the digital economy, and settlements in currencies that are alternative to the major Western reserve currencies, which the West is grossly abusing.

Payment platforms are high of the list of priorities of many associations and organisations in Africa, Latin America, as well as within the SCO and BRICS. This is also an important element of efforts to free ourselves from the remnants of colonial dependency, which, let’s face it, still abound.

We will address food security, which has always been of great importance to Africans, not only in terms of continuing and expanding exports of Russian foods and fertiliser, but also in terms of establishing agricultural and fertiliser production directly on the African continent.

I hope that all these areas will take on concrete form during the remaining period and get reflected in the 2027-2029Action Plan that is currently in the works, as well as included in a declaration that the leaders will adopt upon conclusion of the summit.

Question: You touched upon economic sovereignty today. How can Russia’s support in the bauxite sector help Guinea-Bissau expand its domestic processing capacity and create added value inside the country instead of remaining an exporter of raw materials? How will this contribute to fulfilling the broader goal of achieving economic sovereignty?

Sergey Lavrov: I think the programme now being implemented by RUSAL is helping achieve the objectives you mentioned. First, processing capacity is one of RUSAL’s priorities. Second, the company is making every effort to promote the localisation of production and the training of local specialists in the fields of interest, so that added value can be created within the country while ensuring that the capacities of RUSAL contribute to the development and stability of the global aluminium market.

Seventy Guinean citizens are studying at our universities on scholarships paid for by this Russian company. Such training will contribute to localising this industry in a friendly country.

It is also important that, in addition to its direct production activities, RUSAL pays great attention to social projects, as it does in other countries where it operates production facilities and projects. We are therefore grateful for high evaluation of this work and for the fact that the most favourable conditions are being created for it.

This is an excellent example that other Russian investors may find appealing. It will certainly be taken into account during preparations for a business forum between our two countries which I hope we will be able to plan and hold.

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