BELMOPAN, Belize – Foreign Affairs Minister, Eamon Courtenay says the discussions with the President-elect of Guatemala, Bernardo Arevalo, during his brief visit on Friday were “very fruitful, very cordial and, I think, a very positive”.
Bernardo Arevalo, president-elect of Guatemala, greeted on his arroval in Belize last Friday (News 5 Photo)Arevalo, who is to be sworn into office on January 14 next year, held talks with Prime Minister John Briceño and Courtenay.
The visit came a day after Guatemala’s highest court ordered Congress to guarantee the swearing-in of the president-elect, after accepting an appeal against efforts by the prosecutor’s office aimed at preventing him from assuming power.
“When President-elect Arevalo was elected, he and Prime Minister had a courtesy call shortly thereafter when the prime minister congratulated him and he promised to visit Belize before he took office,” Courtenay said, adding that the visit last Friday was “in fulfillment of that promise.
“It was, of course, not an official visit because he is not yet in office, and so the discussions were very informal. He came accompanied by the foreign minister designate and an advisor. We spoke about our bilateral relations and the need for us to restart things.
“ We spoke about trade and we spoke about migration, cooperation and drug smuggling, anti-drug smuggling, and he pledged that once he took office, he wished to reinvigorate the discussions and to move the agenda forward. ”
The Foreign Minister said that the discussions also involved Central America and the Central American Integration System (SICA) that involves seven Central American countries and the Dominican Republc.
Both Guatemala and Belize are members of SICA, the economic and political grouping that was formed in 1991.
Courtenay said that there had been “an exchange of views” between the presidentt-elect and Briceno on “some of the challenges,” on SICA and “of course we spoke about wider things in Latin America and the Caribbean, and, you know, some of the things”.
Guatemala and Belize have a long standing border dispute and have voted in separate referendums to ask the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague to make a decision on the dispute.
Guatemala recognised the independence of Belize at the beginning of the 1990s, but it never accepted the borders and continues to claim 11,000 square kilometres, about half the territory of the former British colony.
