Steenhuisen: Land expropriation not raised in US talks
Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen says concerns about land expropriation did not come up during bilateral talks with US trade representatives.
"The focus yesterday was on trade and how we can keep trade going. I've no doubt the matter will come up in the course of the period,” he said to the media in Washington on Tuesday.
He is in the United States as part of President Cyril Ramaphosa's delegation, ahead of his meeting with President Donald Trump on Wednesday afternoon.
The two countries have been locked in a diplomatic row over the Expropriation Act, which Trump claims will lead to the takeover of white-owned farms.
His administration recently welcomed a group of Afrikaners, to whom it granted refugee status.
While Steenhuisen has refuted claims of a genocide against white people, he says there's a safety crisis in rural areas in South Africa.
He's reiterated that land compensation should be fair and equitable and align with Section 25 of the Constitution.
"Farmers and farm workers do feel unsafe and insecure in many parts of rural areas, but it's no different to challenges faced in rural areas around other parts of the world.
"What we need to do is to make sure that we focus policing resources there and that we have a far better synergy between local security initiatives by farmers and farming organisations and formal SAPS interventions in those rural areas,” he said.
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