The invitation was delivered by the Angolan ambassador to Guinea-Bissau, Mário Augusto, who informed, in statements to the press at the end of the hearing, that the biennial will take place from the 22nd to the 24th of November this year, with the initiative being a space for political consultation and diplomacy to several African countries and other continents, on the issues that Africa has been experiencing.
Mário Augusto highlighted that relations between Angola and Guinea-Bissau were good until 2012, remaining suspended from that year onwards, with the need to re-establish them and all agreements or protocols signed to be reviewed.
"We need to review them, to implement them again, because what is happening is that the context is completely different, 2023 is different from 2012, and there is a complete need to review, to revisit the cooperation protocols to give a new dynamic to cooperation", he said.
Relations between the two Portuguese-speaking countries cooled down in 2012, after the Guinean authorities demanded the withdrawal of the Angolan Mission in Guinea-Bissau (Missang), created as part of Angola's aid to the Armed Forces Reform Program, from its territory. Guineans.
The program was interrupted following a coup d'état that occurred in April 2012, which deposed the then Interim President of the Republic, Raimundo Pereira, and the then Prime Minister, Carlos Gomes Júnior.
The diplomat highlighted that, after the two Governments work on reviewing the cooperation protocols and starting to implement them, "a more consistent, positive or firmer assessment" of relations between the two countries could be made.
"But, for now, I think we still have to work in ways that allow for consultation, so that (...) the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Guinea-Bissau and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Angola can meet to work in legal instruments, which can support bilateral cooperation", he highlighted.
The head of state appointed Mário Augusto as ambassador of Guinea-Bissau in 2022, filling the vacant post since 2020.
In March 2020, Umaro Sissoco Embaló accused João Lourenço of interfering in Guinea-Bissau's internal affairs, for having received Domingos Simões Pereira, in Luanda, during the 2019 post-election dispute and criticized the judicial treatment given to the former's children. President José Eduardo dos Santos.
