The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, and his Peruvian counterpart, Pedro Castillo, at the La Moneda presidential palace, Santiago, Chile. JAVIER TORRES (AFP)
The President of Chile, Gabriel Boric, and his Peruvian counterpart, Pedro Castillo, have announced this Tuesday in Santiago that the suspended summit of the Pacific Alliance will be held in Lima.
The leaders have assured that the date of the meeting will be announced once Mexico and Colombia, the other two member countries of the regional association, have been consulted.
The summit was scheduled for November 25 in Mexico City, but President Andrés Manuel López Obrador decided to cancel it after the Peruvian Congress banned Castillo from leaving the country for the fourth time since he took office in June 2021.
"We are going to give continuity to this important multilateral cooperation that we have between the countries of the Pacific basins of our America, with what is today the center of the world, which are the countries of Asia Pacific with America Pacific", has assured this afternoon Boric in La Moneda, within the framework of the IV Binational Cabinet between Chile and Peru.
Castillo must take over the presidency of the Alliance, currently in the hands of the Mexican López Obrador.
The Peruvian president has advanced in the press point that he hopes to define the date "in the next few hours", once the consultations with Mexico and Colombia are finished.
The Mexican president has already shown his willingness for the annual meeting to reaffirm regional cooperation to take place in December.
The change of venue for the summit is a boost to Castillo, who is going through a complex political scenario in his country.
This same Tuesday, a group of opposition congressmen presented the third vacancy motion —removal— against the president for “permanent moral incapacity.”
This is the constitutional mechanism that in the past removed former presidents Alberto Fujimori and Martín Vizcarra.
Castillo has visited Chilean territory for less than 48 hours to commemorate 200 years of diplomacy between neighboring nations.
The Peruvian president was accompanied by a delegation of ministers and also business representatives who participated in the Chile-Peru Business Council to promote trade.
Of the various issues addressed by both presidents, Boric highlighted the agreements for the fight against crime and security.
"Crime does not recognize borders and, therefore, we are working together with the Carabineros, the Investigative Police, and the National Police of Peru, to confront these organized crime gangs," said the Chilean president, who announced a 2022-2023 Binational Work Plan to combat human trafficking and migrant smuggling.
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