South Africa’s foreign affairs ministry called in US Ambassador Leo Brent Bozell III on Tuesday for a third time over what it described as “undiplomatic conduct,” a senior government official told Reuters, but did not elaborate on what the conduct was.
“We can confirm that we demarched Ambassador Bozell. The third demarche since he started his duties nine months ago,” a senior official at South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) told Reuters late on Tuesday.
A demarche is a formal diplomatic protest from one government to another.
The US embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The State Department acknowledged the receipt of questions from Reuters and said it would respond later.
Relations between the two countries have been strained by US President Donald Trump’s repeated false claims that white South Africans face systemic persecution.
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