US senators vow to renew SA AIDS deal despite Russia ties
US senators visiting South Africa to assess the impact of a major American-funded HIV-AIDS scheme on Thursday vowed to renew the programme despite Pretoria's close ties with Russia.
South Africa has forged ahead with highly controversial naval exercises jointly staged with Russia and China and coinciding with the one-year anniversary of the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine.
The five-day exercises were launched on Wednesday off the eastern coast of South Africa despite calls for them to be postponed or cancelled.
"You do joint naval exercises with Russia and China on the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine by (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, you gonna have problems," Senator Lindsey Graham told a news conference in Johannesburg.
Despite that he promised to have the funding re-authorised.
"I think it would be stupid for us in the US to terminate this programme," he said.
He promised to fight to have the programme refunded and "get a big vote" despite the "problems going on here in South Africa with the Russians".
South Africa has refused to condemn the invasion of Ukraine which has largely isolated Moscow on the international stage, saying it prefers dialogue to end the war.
A group of US senators, accompanied by 75-year-old star British singer Elton John, were visiting South Africa to mark 20 years since the launch of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR.
PEPFAR was launched in February 2003 by the then US president George W. Bush to combat the spread of AIDS in 15 of the hardest-hit areas of Africa and the Caribbean.
With an initial budget of $15 billion over its first five years, PEPFAR has now invested more than $100 billion in HIV-AIDS programmes and saved some 21 million lives globally.
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