BUENOS AIRES, Jan 19 (NNN-XINHUA) — The upcoming 7th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Community of the Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) will seek to strengthen “unity in diversity” and consolidate the region as a zone of “peace,” an Argentine official organizing the event said Wednesday.
Representatives from the bloc’s 33 countries will work to find “common ground” on regional matters when they meet in Buenos Aires on Jan 24, Gustavo Martinez Pandiani, Argentine Foreign Ministry’s undersecretary for Latin American and Caribbean Affairs, told state news agency Telam.
The official, also CELAC’s national coordinator in Argentina, said the dialogue will focus on “issues that unite” different delegations, while “always respecting the different characteristics of each of the countries.”
CELAC’s rotating presidency under President Alberto Fernandez “has given (the bloc) greater dynamism, and a greater presence outside the region, carrying the voice of Latin America and the Caribbean to summits such as the G7 and the G20,” Martinez Pandiani said.
He said Argentina wants CELAC to become more than a “mere mechanism of consultation between presidents” and serve as “a system of integration that really reaches societies and the common people.” — NNN-XINHUA
