JOHANNESBURG, Sept 5, 2005 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- South African Defense Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Monday his country would withdraw its 369-strong peacekeeping and protection unit troops from Burundi.
"We try to get out of there now. We think we have done what we could," Minister Lekota said in Pretoria, the administrative capital in the country's northeast.
He said that the first priority was securing the withdrawal of the peacekeeping unit, which has been guarding the safety of Burundian leaders during peace talks leading to the country's political transition.
The minister said he would start negotiations this week to achieve that.
As for the 1,266 South African peacekeeping troops deployed in Burundi under a United Nations mandate, Lekota disagreed with the UN assessment that they should stay a while longer.
"The UN continues to have a sense that they would like to allow for a period of time to see there is stabilization and that the stability is sustained for a period of time. We think actually that the atmosphere is so positive now that we can withdraw," he said.
"Unfortunately, the mission of the UN can only be decided upon by the UN. The protection unit was our deployment and that we can take a decision on," he added.
Lekota said the South African deployment was instrumental in achieving a democratic dispensation for Burundi.
The South African National Defense Force, which was the first to deploy troops in that country, has gained valuable peacekeeping experience, he added.
Former rebel chief Pierre Nkurunziza, a Hutu, was sworn in as Burundi's first post-transition president last month following national elections which began in June.
Burundi's conflict, which has claimed an estimated 300,000 lives, erupted 12 years ago when the country's first democratically elected president, a member of the Hutu majority, was assassinated by the Tutsi-dominated military.