US Defence Secretary in Ghana

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Africa, Mr Michael Waterphal, on Wednesday stressed the need for countries to maintain and sustain constant military training for peacekeeping missions.

Speaking during a courtesy call on the Minister of Defence, Dr Kwame Addo Kufuor in Accra, he said the US was prepared to co-operate with sub-regional organisations such as ECOWAS in such exercises.

Mr Waterphal is in the country to assess and evaluate the sub-regional security situation with respect to US assistance and also to devise new avenues to improve it. He has already been to Guinea, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire and Nigeria.

Mr Waterphal said his visit was also to see how best US military programmes such as the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI), which was aimed at providing peacekeeping training and equipment for African militaries, would be strengthened.

Dr Addo Kufuor thanked the US government for their close co-operation with Ghana and said the country had benefited a lot from the joint military training programmes.

He said he hoped US military assistance to the country would be regular and, if possible, increased.