Foreign Affairs, National Security and Agriculture Ministries meet with Guatemalan government

Alexis Rosado

There was a high-level meeting held in Toledo on Tuesday, where officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Security and Agriculture met with representatives of the Guatemalan government.  The meeting is part of an ongoing series of discussions following the formation of a joint commission established in January in Washington.  While the agenda for the first sit-down did not include talks of the ICJ referendum, C.E.O. in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Alexis Rosado says that a comprehensive plan of action is being put together for 2014.

FOR VIDEO CLICK HERE.

Alexis Rosado, C.E.O., Ministry of Foreign Affairs

“We had set a plan of action with the Guatemalans to develop various projects, areas of collaboration over 2014 so that we could: one, work together better; two, try to see how we can develop confidence at all levels of society.  This is the first meeting of the joint commission that was established two weeks ago in Washington with ministers of foreign affairs.”

Reporter

“Okay, so who from Guatemala is represented at this meeting?”

Alexis Rosado

“We have my counterpart, the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala, Carlos Raul Morales and he has his team as well.  And we have our team.  We are joined by the C.E.O. of Agriculture Jose Alpuche, the C.E.O. of National Security George Lovell and Ambassador Fred Martinez from Guatemala and Lisa Shoman, the representative of the Leader of the Opposition and that whole team.  So both of us have a full team.  We’re expecting some people from Isabal, the commercial sector and also the local chamber from PG who have been collaborating and what we’re looking forward to is for them to tell us the kind of work they’ve been doing together.  What we’re looking for is to see how we could constructively collaborate with each other.”

Reporter

“So is there going to be a follow-up meeting to this and when?”

Alexis Rosado

“The idea here is that we have a whole work plan cut out for the rest of the year.  This is the first meeting, we’re setting a work program.  We will meet, I think, every month or so at this level.  There will be other meetings that will be taking place in terms of more issue oriented ones, so like agriculture they will have their own meeting.  We’re hoping to have the trade ministries, our Ministry of Foreign Trade with their equivalent in Guatemala to meet.  I think a date has been set for February twenty-first to see how they could improve trade between the countries and facilitate it.”

We note that the Belize Territorial Volunteers put up signs saying no to the ICJ near the venue of the meeting in Toledo.