it's complicated

DRC- US: The dance of diplomacy

By Romain Gras

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Posted on January 24, 2023 09:33

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks with DRC president Félix Tshisekedi during the signing of a memorandum of understanding in Washington, 13 December 2022. © EVELYN HOCKSTEIN / POOL / AFP

When DRC’s Félix Tshisekedi came to power, Kinshasa and Washington established a much closer diplomatic relationship than his predecessor Joseph Kabila. However, the results of this relationship have become much complicated.

Huddled together behind a small security barrier, journalists are only entitled, on this 13 December 2022, to a brief glimpse of the tête-à-tête that Antony Blinken, the American secretary of state, and Félix Tshisekedi, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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