The Zimbabwean government will soon move a motion to have the sanctions imposed by the European Union (EU) lifted, reported the English-language Herald Monday.

The daily quoted Zimbabwean senior official Walter Mzembi as saying that that Harare would raise its reservations about the continued sanctions and travel bans imposed on senior government officials at the forthcoming 11th session of the African, Caribbean and Pacific/EU parliamentary assembly to be held in Vienna, Austria, in June.

Mzembi said Zimbabwe would seize the opportunity of the joint parliamentary session to ask EU members of parliament to justify their respective countries' continued upholding of sanctions and travel bans on Zimbabwean senior government officials.

"The creation of the working group of the conflict resolution management committee will be an opportunity for us to ask the EU to justify the sanctions. We have an internal but thriving democracy and the biggest opposition party in Africa, particularly in Parliament," Mzembi said.

"As a delegation, we should begin to ask substantive questions on the justification for the continued imposition of sanctions because there is no conflict in Zimbabwe. We are nowhere near anything that relates to conflict. We still have diplomatic representations in EU countries and vice versa and there is no need for the sanctions."

He said there was a general feeling among EU legislators at a parliamentary session held in Bamako, Mali that Zimbabwe, or any other country for that matter, should be left to solve its internal problems, hence the need to move a motion for the lifting of the sanctions.

It was agreed at the Bamako session that any country could not be discussed without being represented.

Source: Xinhua