The AU Head, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, has contacted President Pierre Nkurunziza to make it clear that “the AU has no other agenda than to assist the government and people of Burundi at their hour of need”.
She said on Saturday in Addis Ababa that AU was consistent with its commitment to promote African solutions to African problems.
Dlamini-Zuma in a statement expressed the AU’s readiness to rapidly initiate discussions with the government of Burundi to devise the best ways and means of facilitating the deployment of the mission, in a spirit of mutual understanding and cooperation.
Dlamini-Zuma called on Burundi’s feuding sides to cooperate with peace talks, which are scheduled to resume in Uganda on Dec. 28
The crisis began in April when Nkurunziza announced he would seek a third term, sparking a failed coup and months of street protests.
The United Nations says at least 400 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled the country.
The violence has unnerved a region that remains volatile two decades after the genocide in neighbouring Rwanda.
