The World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) has praised the Kimberley Process (KP) for scoring a “convincing victory” in its fight against conflict diamonds following a compromise deal between the industry watchdog and Zimbabwe over the resumption of exports from the southern African country.
In a statement issued on Monday WFDB president Avi Paz said that the “Kimberley Process showed that it has real muscle and that it is able to achieve results.”
“The Government of Zimbabwe should also be commended for its flexibility and readiness to find common ground with the KP,” he added.
Paz stressed that the agreement would pave the way for “the people of Zimbabwe to legitimately benefit from their country’s rich diamond resources”.
Under the agreement, signed during last Thursday’s meeting of the World Diamond Council in Russia, Zimbabwe is allowed to conduct two supervised exports of rough diamonds from the Marange fields (east) starting September.
The two sides also agreed that the KP would send another review mission to Zimbabwe.
The Kimberley Process Monitoring Committee would then review the report issued by this review mission to formulate a position regarding future exports.
KP has blocked Marange exports for the past nine months, demanding that Zimbabwe first complies with international mining and human rights standards.
The embargo followed reports of rights abuses by soldiers deployed to protect the diamond fields from illegal miners.
Source African Press Agency
African News from NetNewsPublisher.com
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