Lamola met expelled Ebrahim Rasool upon his return to SA, Dirco says

The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) has confirmed that Minister Ronald Lamola met with former South African ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool.

The meeting comes a day after Rasool returned to South Africa on Sunday. He had been expelled by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and stripped of his diplomatic privileges.

Meeting

Rasool was declared persona non grata and given just a week to leave the US due to comments he made during a webinar about the country and the Donald Trump administration.

Dirco said Lamola met with Rasool on Monday.

“Following the meeting, a formal report will be submitted to the president for his consideration. Pending this, the ministry or department will not engage in public engagements on the matter.”

ALSO READ: WATCH: ‘I will wear my persona non grata as a badge of dignity,’ says expelled Rasool

The former ambassador returned to a hero’s welcome at the Cape Town International Airport on Sunday.

‘No regrets’

The crowds surrounded Rasool and his wife Rosieda as they emerged in the arrivals terminal in Cape Town, and they needed a police escort to help them navigate the building.

Rasool told supporters he had no regrets.

“A declaration of persona non grata is meant to humiliate you,” Rasool told supporters as he addressed them with a megaphone, Rasool said.

“But when you return to crowds like this, and with warmth … like this, then I will wear my persona non grata as a badge of dignity. It was not our choice to come home, but we come home with no regrets.”

“My remarks were with the [Mapungubwe] institute speaking to South African intelligents, intellectuals, political leaders and others to alert them to a change of the way we live, to a change of the way we are positioned in the United States, that the old way of doing business with the US was not a good one.”

Ramaphosa under pressure

Despite his treatment, Rasool told the large gathering South Africa’s relationship with the US must be rebuilt.

Meanwhile, mounting pressure is on President Cyril Ramaphosa to replace Rasool with someone who will curry favour with the Trump administration and mend the fractured relations between the US and South Africa.

ALSO READ: WATCH: ‘Rasool provoked Trump with global white supremacist remarks’ – Mbeki