Uganda and Ireland to strengthen cordial relations to forester economic and diplomatic developments, Jeje Odong Minister for Foreign Affairs has disclosed.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced this while meeting H.E Kevin Colgan Ambassador of Ireland to Uganda in bilateral talks with the Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon Jeje Odongo Abubakhar at the Ministry headquarters in Kampala.
Both underscored the longstanding and cordial relations between the Republic of Ireland and the Republic of Uganda.
During the meeting, Hon Jeje Odongo extended his warm welcome to H.E Kevin Colgan, expressing Uganda’s commitment to further strengthening the bilateral ties between the two nations that have been fostered over many years.
He highlighted the mutual respect and cooperation that characterize the relationship between the two nations and underscored Uganda’s readiness to explore new avenues of collaboration in areas of mutual interest.
H.E Kevin Colgan conveyed greetings and well-wishes from the people of the Republic of Ireland and informed that the Embassy of Ireland in Kampala was to relocate from its current location to the former Norwegian Embassy location in Nakasero.He went to indicate that an agreement had been reached between them and the Ambassador of Norway in Tanzania was to secure office space at the new acquired chancery/Irish Embassy which will be used to continue handling bilateral interests between Uganda and Norway.
He stated that a formal communication will be delivered to the Ministry for the record. The ambassador went on to inform that the Embassy will celebrate its 30 years of bilateral relations with Uganda on the 24th October,2024 and by extension, invited Hon.Gen. Jeje Odongo to embrace the anniversary.
He indicated that a buildup to the celebrations was coupled with field visits to projects and programmes, the Republic of Ireland has established in Karamoja and Kiboga District amidst the insecurity related hardships caused by the cattle rustlers.
During the discussions, Ambassador Kevin Colgan requested to understand why peaceful Ugandan citizens were being arrested, detained and others tortured yet it was their human right to express their dissatisfaction over bad government and corruption.
Minister Jeje acknowledged the fact that the rioters had all the reasons to riot especially having received intelligence that some senior government officials had involved themselves in corruption tendencies through wrongfully appropriation of public funds to their personal use.
He went on to stress that government had however received intelligence that some foreign elements had penetrated and allied with key organizers of the riots to destabilize the government and hence the necessary force that was applied.
The Minister confirmed that most of the rioters since had been produced in Ugandan courts of law and later released. He equally indicated that government had taken the necessary steps to apprehend and imprison those senior officials and political leaders that had been mentioned in the corruption cases.
Hon.Gen. Jeje Odongo went on to inform that an agreement had been arrived at between EU representative in Uganda for all conflict nation parties to hold a summit in Kampala for them to discuss and conclude the DRC crisis as he emphasized that the solutions to the situation in DRC between M23 rebels and other forces was in a political direction and not armed rebellion. On this, he reminded the meeting that Kigali and Kinshasa had held talks in Angola(Luanda) on the 30th July,2024 and also agreed that it was necessary to have political dialogue to have an end to the killings and atrocities committed on the people of Eastern DRC in the North Kiv region.
