Botswana’s accredited ambassador to Russia currently operates from a permanent base in Stockholm, Sweden, a situation Russia has over the years been gently urging Botswana to correct. The two countries are in a two-horse race to chair the KPCS, the world’s premier watchdog against conflict diamonds and their trade. Ahead of the KPCS plenary held in Belgium between November 12 and 16, compromise talks between the two failed as neither country was willing to concede to the other.
Under KPCS rules, the annual battle to lead the organisation is focussed on the vice chair, as the vice automatically becomes chair the following year. In Brussels recently, Botswana and Russia only succeeded in submitting a joint-candidacy for vice-chair as neither backed off the campaign. While the joint-candidacy meant both countries locked out other contenders for the chair, their failure to choose the sequence in which they will serve as vice chair, then chair, has brought matters to a head in the organisation. Ahead of the Brussels plenary, local Minerals ministry officials held several meetings with Moscow’s representatives being Russian Embassy authorities, with no breakthrough. BusinessWeek is informed that the issue of establishing an embassy in Moscow came up at one of these meetings, indicating that the solution to the matter could lie outside the matters actually on the table.
