The Hindu : Central American Ministers to visit Delhi

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 25, 2004

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Central American Ministers to visit Delhi

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI, JAN. 24. It is not often that several Ministers from one part of the world are in India. But that is exactly what will happen when Ministers from the Sistema de la Integracion (System of Central American Integracion or SICA) arrive here for a five-day visit on February 1.

The Foreign Ministers of Guatemala, Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Belize — Jorge Briz Abularach, Harmodio Arias Cerjack, Maria Eugenia Brizuela de Avila, Normal Caldera Cardenal, Leonidas Rosa Bautista and Godfrey Smith, are among those who are expected in India. A Vice-Foreign Minister from Costa Rica, Marco Vinicio Vargas Pereira, the SICA Secretary-General, Oscar Alfredo Santamaria, as well as the Foreign Minister of the Dominican Republic (an associate member of SICA), Francisco Guerrero Prats, will be here.

Government sources told this correspondent that India and SICA (total population 35 million) were expected to sign an Agreement for the Establishment of a Mechanism of Political Consultation and Cooperation. This would allow for the establishment of an institutional linkage for regular political dialogue and a road map for achieving long-term objectives of joint projects and preferential trade agreements leading eventually to a free trade area, the sources said. During their trip, the visiting Ministers will call on the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and pay a visit to the samadhi of Mahatma Gandhi. The External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha will hold talks with his Central American counterparts and host a lunch in their honour.

According to sources, the visit will be an "epoch-breaking one" for India-Central America relations because never have such a large number of Ministers from the region visited India since Independence. While India's relations with countries in Central America had been cordial and friendly, constraints of geographical distance had prevented development of relations and interaction to their full potential, they said.

There have been several visits to Central America by representatives from the Ministry of External Affairs. India is stressing on "economic diplomacy" — a dimension also reflected in the formation of the trilateral commission between India, Brazil and South Africa.

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