Paul Biya granted an audience to Abdou Abarry, the new representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN) and head of the UN Regional Office for Central Africa on 29 March.

The UN diplomat told the press that Cameroon’s involvement in peacekeeping operations in Central Africa was one of the topics on the agenda of the forty-minute meeting.

“I took this opportunity to congratulate President Paul Biya for the very positive role he is playing here in Central Africa. Cameroon has become a country whose centrality is not in doubt in terms of economic weight, in terms of political weight and in terms of contribution to the resolution of difficulties that other countries are going through,” explained Abdou Abarry.

Speaking of this contribution of Cameroon to the resolution of the difficulties of other countries in Central Africa, Abdou Abarry refers mainly to the provision of troops by Yaoundé to UN peacekeeping operations. This is particularly the case for the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) in the Central African Republic (CAR). At the end of last year, Cameroon deployed a new contingent of 1,070 Cameroonian peacekeepers in CAR. This is the ninth such contingent, an action which deserves to be saluted according to the diplomat.