MOSCOW, Russia, September 4, 2017/APO/ -- 

On September 4, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of the Republic of South Africa, signed an intergovernmental cooperation agreement on maintaining international information security. They signed it on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Xiamen, the People’s Republic of China.

The signing of this document once again proves the high level of trust between our states. It reflects the spirit of genuine strategic partnership that is typical of Russian-South African relations. The agreement shows the striving of Russia and South Africa to expand bilateral cooperation on one of the most important aspects of maintaining international and national security.

Another key stage in the history of Russian-South African cooperation has been completed in Xiamen: both countries have formalised their identical approaches to maintaining international information security, and they have laid an international legal framework for implementing specific joint initiatives in this area.

Russia and the Republic of South Africa come from a common position on evaluating the threats in international information security, including the use of information-communications technologies for perpetrating acts of aggression, violating the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of states,  for interfering in their domestic affairs, damaging their economies and also for terrorist and other criminal purposes.

The agreement will allow our countries to conduct practical cooperation on a range of issues to maintain international information security at a new level. This implies the creation of a joint system for responding to threats in this sphere, for investigating cases of the use of information-communication technologies for terrorist and other criminal purposes, for jointly drafting and advancing the relevant norms of international law, implementing joint research and development projects and training experts in this field.

The signing of the agreement allows the concerned agencies of our countries to launch a direct dialogue regarding the main cooperation aspects of maintaining international information security.

In addition, this document allows Russia and South Africa to more closely coordinate their approaches to issues of international information security on the international scene, including such venues as the UN, BRICS and the International Telecommunication Union.

For implementing this agreement, Russia and South Africa will hold regular interdepartmental consultations to discuss the entire range of issues for maintaining international information security.

Distributed by APO on behalf of The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.