The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has called for an Africa-led strategy, supported by international partners such as Russia, to combat the rising threat of terrorism in West Africa and the Sahel.

Addressing the media during an official visit to Moscow last Monday, Mr Ablakwa said Ghana welcomed Russia’s contribution to stabilising the Sahel region and commended Moscow for its role.

“Russia has been playing a very important role in stabilising the situation in the Sahel, and during the meeting I conveyed the high commendations of President Mahama and the government and people of Ghana for Russia's role,” he stated.

The Foreign Minister stressed that Ghana’s position that solutions to the security crisis must be driven by Africans with the support of international partners had not changed.

“You know our position is that it has to be an Africa-led solution with the support of our international partners and that is how we see this Russian approach,” Mr Ablakwa said.

Mr Ablakwa stated that since his inauguration, President John Dramani Mahama had led efforts to restore dialogue and cooperation in the region.

He said the President invited leaders of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) to his inauguration “despite the fact that they had been ostracised and relations have become frosty with ECOWAS”.

“In that engagement it was clear that we will need international partnership because the Sahel has become the global epicentre for terrorism and this must be of concern to everybody in the world, and we cannot rely on only a few countries,” the minister explained.

Mr Ablakwa said Ghana had drafted a new agreement which had been shared with the Russian side to guide future collaboration.

“We have currently drafted an agreement which we have shared with the Russian side and we want to work with them with this new framework we are putting together which has the collective support of ECOWAS states and AES states so that with Russia, we can neutralise the extremists,” he said.

He added that government welcomed the efforts of the Africa Corps in supporting what he described as “an Africa-led strategy.”

“So we do not see Russia’s role as a meddlesome busybody who has not been invited.

They have been invited and they are helping us to stabilise the situation,” he stressed.

The Foreign Minister said the security and stability of the Sahel was critical to global peace.

“We see Russia as an important partner to help us to deal with the threat of terrorism and we want to continue to see more collaboration in that regard because the security of the Sahel, the stability of the Sahel is the collective stability and security of the entire globe,” Mr Ablakwa said.