…Belize foreign minister says no

Familial relations aside, today Minister of Foreign Affairs Lisa Shoman commented on the implications Colom’s victory could have for Belize.

Lisa Shoman, Minister of Foreign Affairs
“I think we have to congratulate Guatemala on a very peaceful outcome of an electoral process. I think they’ve held an election that was fairly calm and people have demonstrated their preference in terms of candidates but I think in terms of Belize-Guatemala, we don’t at this point in time, anticipate that there is going to be a difference in stance towards the Belize Guatemala territorial differendum. We are very much looking forward to working with the new government. There will be a transition period of about two months and so I suppose that we will have an opportunity at some point in time to meet with either the President-elect or, quite possibly, with the Foreign Minister designate but I don’t anticipate at this point in time that there is going to be any change. In fact all that we have heard leads us to believe that we will able to able to continue along the path of looking for a peaceful and definitive and fair solution to this issue.”

“At the moment we are waiting to hear from the Secretary General of the O.A.S. since at the last meeting we briefed him as to where we were and he has asked both of us to wait to hear from him so we are still awaiting the Secretary General’s response to us.”

President-elect Colom will officially take over from President Oscar Berger on January fourteenth when he will be inaugurated in Guatemala City.