JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- South African President Thabo Mbeki will join other African leaders to attend a Germany-Africa forum in Bonn this weekend, which marks the launch of German President Horst Koehler's "Partnership with Africa" Initiative.

    Mbeki, his Nigerian counterpart Olusegun Obasanjo and EthiopianPrime Minister Meles Zenawi will participate in a panel discussionentitled "Partnership with Africa -- Concept and Reality," South Africa's foreign ministry announced on Thursday.

    Africa's decision makers participating the discussions also include former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano, Chairman of the Commission of the African Union Alpha Omar Konare, and Gertrude Mongella, president of the Pan-African Parliament.

    Mbeki's participation in the forum came within the context of South Africa's objective to consolidate partnerships with countries of the North in order to assist in creating the conditions for the development agenda of Africa to be achieved, said the ministry's spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa.

    The German embassy said on its website that the aim of the initiative "is to have open dialogue on relations between African and industrialized countries where tension and contradictions are no taboo all with a view to moving towards partnership."

    Apart from African leaders, Koehler also invites business representatives, intellectuals and journalists from Europe and Africa to the forum, including Wole Soyinka, Nigerian laureate of the Nobel Literature Prize, who now lives in London.

    "There are trends we cannot overlook which show that something in Africa is going dramatically wrong. As I see it, however, that is absolutely no reason for now abandoning Africa," Koehler said in a recent interview with German weekly Die Zeit.

    "It should prompt us instead to think again about how our development policies could be improved and what Africans themselves could do to change matters," he said.

    "In my view, the humanity of our world can be measured against the fate of Africa," he said. Enditem