Pretoria - President Jacob Zuma, fresh from wrapping up events around the State of the Nation Address, will undertake a working visit to Mauritania this weekend.
He is expected to participate in an AU High Level Panel on the Resolution of the Crisis in C"te D'Ivoire, of which he is a member.
The High-Level Panel was established by the Peace and Security Council of the AU at the 259th meeting of Heads of State and Government held in Addis Ababa in January.
The panel met on 31 January 2011, under the chairmanship of Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, President of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, to determine its programme of work.
According to the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, the team of experts appointed by the panel, will this weekend submit its findings to the members of the high-level panel at a preparatory meeting to be held in Nouakchott, Mauritania.
The panel will thereafter travel to Cote d'Ivoire to meet with the parties and submit proposals for a resolution.
The high-level panel, representing the five regions of the continent, is composed of the leaders of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, South Africa and Tanzania, as well as the Chairperson of the AU Commission and the President of the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
It will work alongside the current Head of the African Union and the leader of the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS.
In accordance with the mandate from the Peace and Security Council of the AU, the panel is expected to conclude its work before the end of February.
Its conclusions, which must be endorsed by Council, will be binding on all the Ivorian parties with whom these conclusions would have been negotiated.
President Zuma will return to South Africa next Tuesday.
