Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Chavez, Uribe talks on hold ... there’ll be no shortages of things to talk about when they meet

Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): The timetable and venue for a meeting between Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Alvaro Uribe of Colombia still haven't been decided, according to Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araújo, cited by French news agency AFP on the Globovision website on Tuesday. Araujo said the hope in Bogota was that the two leaders would meet in July. Officials from both sides were working on "preparatory" details including the agenda for discussion, he added.

AFP reported that Colombian officials last week said a meeting between Chavez and Uribe could be held before July 15 on Venezuelan territory.

It would be their first bilateral meeting since last November, when Uribe withdrew authorization for Chavez to mediate in negotiations for the release of hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Relations cooled a great deal further after the attack by Colombian forces in which FARC deputy commander and "foreign minister" Raul Reyes was killed at a guerrilla camp inside Ecuador on March 1. Bogota released what it claimed were the contents of computer files belonging to Reyes. The files fuelled suspicions of links between Chavez and the FARC leadership, which he denied.

Since then, and in what was seen as an about-turn, Chavez this month urged the FARC to lay down its arms, give up the conflict and release all of its hostages without pre-conditions.

Until then, efforts to free hostages had been made in the context of a reciprocal release of guerrillas from Colombian jails -- an exchange Uribe was reluctant to make. Alternative plans for Chavez and Uribe to talk at a meeting also attended by Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Rafael Correa of Ecuador are also said to be on hold. The reason this time is "problems of agenda" according to a presidential palace spokesman in Brasilia. Lula is due to arrive for an official visit to Caracas this week.

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