Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko is set to arrive in Harare on Monday, this being the first time he has visited Zimbabwe and the Sub-Saharan African region, Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced, adding that the aim of the trip is to strengthen relationships between the two nations.
“The President of the Republic of Belarus, His Excellency Alexander Lukashenko, will pay a State Visit to Zimbabwe from 30 January to 1 February 2023,” the Zimbabwean Foreign Affairs ministry spokesman Livit Mugejo said in a statement.
Mugejo, describing the three-day visit as “historic” as it will be the East European leader’s first time visiting the African country, noted that during that state visit, Lukashenko is scheduled to hold talks with his Zimbabwean counterpart President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
“The state visit is meant to strengthen the existing excellent relations between Zimbabwe and the Republic of Belarus. The two countries have strong cooperation in political, economic, mining, agriculture and disaster risk management,” Mugejo said.
He said that several deals between the two countries are set to be signed during the visit. Mugejo also noted that the two presidents are expected to launch the second phase of the Zimbabwe-Belarus Agricultural Mechanization Program, the first of which was launched in late 2020 and saw the delivery of Belarusian farm equipment to the African country.
Zimbabwe and Belarus established diplomatic relations in April 1992, but ties have strengthened significantly since 2015, in the wake of exchanges of visits by high-profile delegations to Harare and Minsk. Mnangagwa visited Belarus and met with Lukashenko as vice-president of Zimbabwe in 2015 and as president in 2019.
Over the few past years, the two nations have inked more than a dozen cooperation agreements in various fields. An important milestone in diplomatic relations between the two countries was reached in January 2022 when Belarus opened an embassy in Harare.