Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has praised his Mexican counterpart Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for skipping the ongoing US-led ‘Summit of the Americas’. Maduro suggested that a more inclusive meeting with Joe Biden, the US President, was held in Los Angeles. Maduro wasn’t invited. “as a guest”.
Lopez Obrador said Monday that he will not be attending the meeting after Washington declined to host left-leaning leaders from Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba.
Maduro spoke during an address to parliament later that day. “we express our admiration for the clarity and courage of the President of Mexico”.
Maduro also supported Lopez Obrador’s calls to “leave the world of sanctions, blockades, exclusions and discrimination coming from the US.”
“Unfortunately, it is the US government itself that has punctured the so-called summit, which has already made that summit fail,”The Venezuelan leader stated. According to him, “it has no agenda, it has no theme, it has no decision points, it has nothing to link that meeting to the problems and issues of interest and priority of the people of the Americas.”
Maduro also stated that despite his country not being present at the summit, Venezuela’s interests would still be represented by Argentine President Alberto Fernandez who is said to bring the voices of Latin America and the Caribbean to the meeting.
“President Fernandez is a brave man, who defends what he believes in; and he is against exclusion,”Maduro has been added
The Venezuelan leader suggested that he host “sooner rather than later”A meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, (CELAC).
“It will have to be CELAC, President Alberto Fernandez, it will have to be the Community of Latin American States, chaired by you, [that] convenes, with an agenda of priority issues of maximum interest to our people… where the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean will convene and President Joe Biden is invited,”He said.
Mexico’s president said that he would be sending Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard to the summit in Los Angeles, which started Monday and is set to run through June 10. This announcement is made despite earlier warnings that the Mexican president would not attend the summit if all the countries of the region weren’t allowed to.
Other Latin American leaders have also decided to skip the summit, such as Honduran President Xiomara Castro, Bolivian President Luis Arce and Guatemala’s Alejandro Giammattei.
[ad_2]
