The Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation has confirmed a meeting between Minister Ronald Lamola and former South African ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, following his return from the United States of America yesterday.

NOT FOR PUBLIC DISCUSSION

In a statement, the ministry said that following the meeting, a formal report will be submitted to the President for his consideration. "Pending this, the ministry or department will not engage in public engagements on the matter," the statement said. Rasool arrived back in the country yesterday after the White House declared him persona non grata for criticising President Donald Trump and his administration. On Sunday, Rasool addressed the media and members of the African National Congress. He explained that he was almost done with his report and said he needed time to process what had happened. "It is too soon. Sometimes you must get some distance between a moment designed to humiliate you and the anger that would come from it, and then express yourself. Give me a week or two of a vow of silence on that, until I can get some distance between my former role in Washington and my new role as a private citizen.'

NO REGRETS

He told the crowd that welcomed him at the Cape Town International Airport that his remarks were with the institute speaking to South African intelligent intellectuals and political leaders. "I was alerting them to a change of the way we live, to a change of the way we are positioned in the United States, that the old way of doing business with the US was not a good one. There's nothing that I will say there that I would not say elsewhere. And so, I would stand by my analysis because we were analysing a political phenomenon, not a personality, not a nation, and not even a government. And so, I stand by that," he said. Rasool is expected to give a full report to the President soon.