The African Union Chairman, President John Kufour, has said that Zimbabwe’s leader has a right to attend the EU-Africa summit in Portugal. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown had said he would boycott the December summit if President Robert Mugabe was there.

“Africa is made up of 54 nations, sovereign states, and I don’t think any of us has the right to exclude another,” Mr. Kufour told the BBC. The summit hosts, Portugal, said that all African countries would be invited. Mr. Mugabe faces a travel ban in Europe and his government was subject to European Union sanctions.

The BBC’s world affairs correspondent Mark Doyle said that as AU Chairman Mr. Kuffour was the continent’s senior voice. And as the democratically elected leader of a stable Ghana, he is a close ally of the UK.

But like many other African presidents he sees Mr. Mugabe as an historical important colleague – objects to the idea of UK, a former colonial power, trying to say which Africans are welcome at the summit, correspondent said.

Mr. Kufour said it was historic that Europe and Africa meet to look ahead especially to meet the challenges of globalization. “All the presidents of Africa were invited to this summit because we see it as a meeting of two continents, Europe and Africa,” he said.

“If we allow anyone – I wouldn’t say even a nation, but an individual, whatever we think of him – to be a stumbling block then I say its unfortunate.” Key former Portuguese colonies in Africa, including the large and oil-rich nation of Angola, made it clear to Portugal, a relatively small European state, that they wanted Mr. Mugabe to attend.

The UK accuses Mr. Mugabe of rigging elections and human rights abuses.

Source – BBC.