Arias Talks Trade, Disarmament with South American Leaders
President Oscar Arias met in Colombia Monday and yesterday with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and Peruvian President Alan García, reaching agreements in the areas of free trade and disarmament. The leaders, along with their counterparts from other Latin American countries, were in Colombia for the inauguration of newly re-elected President Alvaro Uribe.
According to a statement from Casa Presidencial, Bachelet promised to send a delegation of farmers, legislators and business executives headed by Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley to Costa Rica to explain how Chile has benefited from its wide array of free-trade agreements. Chile is Latin America’s biggest per-capita exporter, has the area’s highest poverty-reduction rates and is negotiating additional free-trade agreements with Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
During Bachelet and Arias’ meeting Monday, Arias also invited her to visit Costa Rica in November.
Yesterday, the last day of Arias’ three-day visit to Bogota, he also met with García, who said he is interested in increasing trade between Peru and Costa Rica.
García gave Arias his support for the “Costa Rican Consensus,” a disarmament plan Arias has been actively promoting since his tour of Europe in June (TT, June 9, 16). It calls for developed countries to take developing nations’ spending habits, particularly their military spending, into account when calculating aid, rewarding countries that minimize military spending.
Arias was also scheduled to meet Monday night with Cuban Vice-President Carlos Lage, but he cancelled the meeting, saying that Lage had put limits on what the two leaders could discuss.
According to the daily La Nación, Arias had planned to send a message through Lage to Raúl Castro, to whom ailing Cuban President Fidel Castro has handed the reins of the government, urging him to organize a transition to democracy. However, Arias said Lage approached him during the inauguration ceremony Monday and told him he didn’t want to talk about that issue.
“I can’t allow people to place conditions on the issues I want to talk about, so I had to cancel the appointment,” Arias told the daily.
-Tico Times