President of the Central African Republic (CAR) Faustin-Archange Touadera, gave a trenchant reply to France's President Emmanuel Macron during a meeting in Paris when his French counterpart proposed that Russian instructors be withdrawn from the CAR, according to a report on Radio France Internationale (RFI) radio station.
According to the RFI report, in which the CAR president's press secretary, Albert Yaloke Mokpeme, was cited, during the meeting Macron raised the possibility that the Russian instructors be withdrawn from the CAR, and this could become a condition for a rapprochement between France and the African country.
"Touadera explained to his French colleague that he was interacting 'with the Russian authorities within the framework of an agreement in the field of defense and personnel training between the two countries' and added that the rest 'is none of his business', the radio station points out."
Paris in 2021 decided to suspend military cooperation with Bangui because it believed it was taking part in an anti-French campaign allegedly carried out by Russia.
At the end of June, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced that the work of Russian instructors in the CAR would continue and at present there are several hundred of them in the country. According to the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry: "The CAR is one of those countries whose government, along with Mali, officially made a request [...] when both CAR and Mali were abandoned by the French and other Europeans, curtailing the presence of anti-terrorist contingents there."
Earlier, the Russian Ambassador to Bangui, Vladimir Titorenko, told RIA Novosti that there are Russian instructors in the CAR who are training military personnel of the government army and are in the country with the notification of the UN Security Council and the sanctions committee. According to him, it is incorrect to call these people mercenaries; they do not participate in military clashes.
Russia has said several times in the past that it is an equal ally with African countries, and that its relations have always been based on selflessness and a number of African leaders have recently visited Russia. Moscow added that Africa has caused the West consternation with its pragmatic approach to Russia and there have been attempts to drive a wedge into relations which have so far failed with the result that Russia has benefited.
Lavrov also said that former leading cities must know their place and understand that the world has changed. According to him, the United States and European countries, by demanding that African countries refuse to cooperate with Russia, are seeking to re-impose Africa's colonial dependence. A number of African countries, commenting on calls from the West to condemn Moscow, have already said that nobody has the right to dictate to them who they can have dealings with.