African, European ministers in new partnership

African and European ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium, affirmed on Thursday their commitment to work toward a new strategic partnership between the two continents. The undertaking by 70 ministerial delegates was made at the first Africa-Europe Ministerial Meeting after the Cairo summit of 2000. Delegates at the Brussels meeting said they held many identical views on conflict prevention, the issue of land mines, regional cooperation, preventing drought and desertification and the greater integration of Africa into the world economy. In addition, they said Africans and Europeans had narrowed their differences on the HIV/AIDS debate, on food security, human rights, democracy and good governance. They expressed a willingness to combat trafficking in humans, particularly of women and children; and agreed to work toward reducing Africa's external debt and for the return of Africa's stolen cultural treasures. The ministers also signed a joint statement condemning terrorism and expressed solidarity with the United States over the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. The meeting was co-chaired by Zambian Minister of Foreign Affairs Keli Walubita and the acting president of the Council of the European Union, Belgium's Louis Michel. A second Africa-Europe ministerial meeting will be held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in the second half of 2002, ahead of a summit scheduled for Lisbon in 2003.