Commonwealth summit ends under shadow of Zimbabwe issue

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, December 09, 2003

Commonwealth summit ends under shadow of Zimbabwe issue

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) ended Monday afternoon under the shadow of Zimbabwe issue, a hot discussion topic that occupied the four-day CHOGM Abuja 2003.

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The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) ended Monday afternoon under the shadow of Zimbabwe issue, a hot discussion topic that occupied the four-day CHOGM Abuja 2003.

Just after the closing meeting in the afternoon, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Commonwealth Secretary-General Donald McKinnon held a joint press conference at the Media Center, briefing newsmen the result of the four-day CHOGM and answering questions.

The Zimbabwe issue was the main topic of the just-concluded CHOGM and Obasanjo, who was also the chairman of the Commonwealth summit, admitted that the efforts to settle the Zimbabwe issue "failed".

However, he still believed that the four-day meeting had offered a good opportunity to the Commonwealth member nations to discuss how to expand economic relations and trade between them, promote technical cooperation and exchange and jointly fight against terrorism, among others.

According to reliable sources, the Zimbabwe issue was the main topic at the four executive sessions over the past four days. The planned main topics such as multilateral trade issues, debt relief, investment, international economic cooperation and anti-terrorism had to give way to Zimbabwe issue.

After the closing ceremony, the CHOGM Abuja 2003 issued 16-pagethe Abuja Communique, which called on the Commonwealth member nations to unite, expand economic relations and trade as well as investment, promote technical cooperation and exchange and make greater efforts to fight terrorism, among others.

The just-closed meeting also adopted the Aso Rock Declaration on the CHOGM Theme and issued the Aso Rock Statement on Multilateral Trade, which is attached to the declaration.

The meeting reaffirmed commitment to the fundamental political values of the Commonwealth as set out in the Singapore and Harare Declarations as well as commitment to non-racism, international peace and security, democracy, good governance, human rights, rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and a political culture that promotes transparency, accountability and economic development.

The meeting also accepted the offer of Malta to host the next CHOGM in 2005 and agreed that the 2007 CHOGM would be hosted by Uganda.

The four-day CHOGM Abuja 2003 opened on Friday morning at the International Conference Center in Nigeria's capital Abuja, with Queen Elizabeth II of Britain declaring the opening ceremony and Obasanjo delivering a welcome speech.

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