The Cape Verdean island of São Vicente will next week host the first ministerial meeting of the South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone (Zopacas) in more than 10 years, according to an official source.
The VIII ministerial meeting of the organization will be held on April 18 at the Oceanographic Center of Mindelo, São Vicente Island. It will be preceded by preparatory meetings at the level of the permanent representations in New York and high representatives or focal points, according to the Cape Verde government.
The VII Ministerial Meeting of Member States of this organization was held in Montevideo (Uruguay) in January 2013.
In December 2019, then-Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo told Praia that the Brazilian government intended to “revive” Zopacas, created in 1986 by a United Nations resolution, involving 24 countries. from Africa and South America and whose headquarters are hosted by Brasilia.
“We want to revive it as a hub where we can discuss ways to fight crime in this Atlantic corridor,” said the head of Brazilian diplomacy at the time under the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro.
Besides these two Portuguese-speaking countries, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe and Equatorial Guinea (all members of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries) are also signatories of Zopacas.
The organization also includes South Africa, Benin, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Namibia, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo from Africa, as well as Argentina and Uruguay from South America.
The Zopacas was created under a United Nations resolution in 1986, with the aim of avoiding the introduction of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction into the region, promoting multilateralism and taking advantage of the full socio-economic potential of the Atlantic corridor.