Petro and Haiti’s Transitional President Met on First Binational Cabinet
President of Colombia Gustavo Petro (R) next to the President of the Transitional Council of the Republic of Haiti, Leslie Voltaire (L), this Saturday in Riohacha, la Guajira, Colombia. Photo: X/ @petrogustavo
December 21, 2024 Hour: 6:12 pm
Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Haitian Transitional Council President Leslie Voltaire presided over the first binational cabinet in Colombia this Saturday, which begins “a new phase of collaboration” between the two countries.
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“The presidents of our countries in a historic event today led the first binational cabinet and the first binational meeting ever held in history,” said Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo, who In a statement following the meeting held in Riohacha, capital of the desert department of La Guajira, in the far north of the country.
Murillo said that it was “a very productive meeting where different topics of commercial development, investments, economic development, collaborations in security issues, education, food security, humanitarian assistance” were touched.
Several ministers from both countries participated, the foreign ministers and presidents and this is the first meeting of its kind after a turbulent relationship that has been marked in recent years by the participation of Colombian mercenaries in the assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise on July 7, 2021.
However, the Haitian chancellor, Jean-Victor Harvel Jean-Baptiste, also called this new beginning of relations “a historic moment” and stressed Colombia’s commitment to help in the security situation that lives in Haiti.
“If we fail to reach out with our Latin American brothers in the Caribbean to resolve these security issues, we will be failing in the main mission of the transitional government. The Colombian government has decided to join us,” the Haitian chancellor said in a joint statement.
Autor: ACJ