South Africa said today it had no reason to believe it faced any terrorism threat after Britain warned its citizens that the African country could be target of attacks.
Britain warned its citizens they might be in danger of terror attacks in South Africa and should therefore be vigilant. It declined to say if the warning was in response to a specific threat and repeated an existing government assessment that "most visits to South Africa are trouble-free".
"We've heard about the British travel advisory. It's a general background advisory and we have no reason to believe that there's any particular terror threat in relation to South Africa," a South African foreign affairs official told Reuters.
In its warning, the British Foreign Office highlighted a number of explosions in South Africa over the past two months - the most serious to hit the country since apartheid rule ended in 1994 and which senior officials say are part of a white right-wing coup plot.
Tourism officials declined to comment but a spokesman in the tourism ministry noted foreign tourist arrivals in the first 10 months of 2002 rose by 10 per cent compared to the same period last year, despite the gloom that has hung over the sector in the post-September 11th world.
South African Airways (SAA) said it had not noticed any change in reservations, saying flights to Britain, one of its busiest routes, remained heavily booked at 85 percent capacity.
"We're not worried. This is one of the busiest and most difficult periods to get an inexpensive economy flight. It's very difficult to get a seat between now and January 17," SAA spokesman Mr Rich Mkhondo told Reuters.