Zaha and his Ivory Coast side will face England in a friendly game at Wembley on Tuesday.
The 29-year-old was born in Abidjan and moved to England at the age of four before representing the Europeans at youth level and winning two caps in friendly games for the Three Lions.
Zaha switched nationality to Ivory Coast in 2016 after getting overlooked by England for a number of years and has since played at three Africa Cup of Nations tournaments.
Southgate managed Zaha during his time with the England u-21's and ahead of their reunion, has given his thoughts on the former Manchester United winger's international choice.
“Wilf is a very good player and when we had him with the under-21s he was in the middle of a very difficult spell both with Manchester United and then on loan with Cardiff,” Southgate said ahead of the game.
“I remember going to a hotel, Palace were playing away, and meeting with Wilf but at that point he had made his mind up. I can understand it because he had been four years without playing.
“I remember being asked at the time and we were asked about a few different cases and I said players have to have the desire to play for England.
“That was slightly tweaked a bit I would say so that created a little bit of an atmosphere with Wilf and (Palace chairman) Steve Parish for a while. That wasn’t an insinuation on Wilf – you couldn’t have a more passionate player as anyone who follows Crystal Palace knows. I am really pleased for him.”
“It’s hard to say what his role might have been with us,” he added.
“Raheem has been a key part of our team for a long period, Jesse Lingard had done a fabulous job and at the start we had Adam Lallana, who was our player of the year for the first 18 months or so.
“He’s a talent, Wilf and a massive part of Palace’s ability to have stayed in the league and now the progress there making.
“He’s a good player playing at a high level every week. He’s a slightly different player to the ones we’ve got.
“He felt the Ivory Coast was the route to go and I totally understood that. He’s had the opportunity to play in the Africa Cup of Nations and everything else, so no one had a crystal ball in terms of knowing how that would have worked out.”
