President Jacob Zuma insisted on Sunday that his new International Relations minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, is not a "strange choice".

"I don't why the choice is strange; to us it is not," Zuma said in reply to a question on the former Limpopo local government and housing MEC having limited foreign affairs experience.

"This is a cadre of the movement. A leader in a province who has been in the NEC (the ANC's National Executive Committee).

"The ANC knows the strengths of this comrade."

Zuma said Nkoana-Mashabane had been involved in foreign affairs, while she was not involved with the government.

Zuma did not give a reason for renaming the foreign affairs ministry.

"Yes, international relations is the same as foreign affairs," he said.

An article in Mail and Guardian last year said Nkoana-Mashabane was the lowest-polling NEC member after the ANC's Polokwane conference in 2007.