South African president, Trump to meet in Washington next week amid tensions over white South Africans

By Mevlut Ozkan

ISTANBUL (AA)— South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will meet with US President Donald Trump at the White House next week, amid a dispute over alleged genocide against white South Africans.

Ramaphosa's office announced on Wednesday that he will travel to the US for a four-day working visit beginning May 19 and meeting with Trump on May 21, during which the two leaders will discuss bilateral, regional, and global issues.

The US welcomed the first group of 59 Afrikaners from South Africa on Monday as part of the Trump administration's new resettlement initiative.

The decision to resettle Afrikaner “refugees" is part of what the State Department called a commitment to "protect victims of racial discrimination" in line with Trump's foreign policy.

Afrikaners are a white ethnic minority who are primarily descendants of Dutch, German, and French settlers who arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 and ruled South Africa during the brutal apartheid regime of racial segregation, which frequently resulted in the violent repression of Black South Africans until 1994.

In a Feb. 7 executive order, Trump directed authorities to begin resettling Afrikaner “refugees,” describing the group as "victims of unjust racial discrimination."

Trump also issued an executive order in February cutting US financial assistance to South Africa, citing concerns about its land expropriation law, a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and deepening ties with Iran.