Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar opened an Israeli embassy in Zambia on Wednesday during a diplomatic visit to the southern African country.

“It is an honor and a privilege to be here in Lusaka and open Israel’s embassy,” Sa’ar said during his speech at the opening ceremony, alongside his Zambian counterpart, Mulambo Haimbe. “It is a truly emotional moment to raise our flag — the Israeli flag — and to hear HaTikvah, here in Zambia, after 52 years.”

Israel and Zambia first established diplomatic ties in 1966, two years after Zambia gained independence from the United Kingdom. But relations were severed at the behest of the Organization of African Unity in the wake of the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and several Arab countries, and Israel’s diplomatic presence across Africa became greatly reduced.

The two countries re-established ties in 1991, but it wasn’t until 2015 that Zambia opened an embassy in Tel Aviv. Until this year, Israel had sufficed with a non-residential ambassador to Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. That ambassador, Ofra Farhi, will become the new ambassador to Zambia and take up residence in Lusaka, while retaining her other posts.

Speaking on Wednesday, Sa’ar said that the new embassy........

© The Times of Israel