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Chilean President coming tomorrow to firm up ties

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Michelle Bachelet, the first woman President of Chile, will arrive here on Monday on a five-day visit. She is expected to be accompanied by a high-level delegation, including the Ministers of Agriculture and Women Empowerment and a business delegation.

During the visit, Dr. Bachelet will call on President Pratibha Patil who will host a State banquet in her honour. To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between India and Chile, Ms. Patil will host a cultural programme at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Dr. Bachelet will hold bilateral talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Vice-President Hamid Ansari, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani and Chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance Sonia Gandhi will call on her. A number of agreements are expected to be signed during the visit.

“India and Chile have enjoyed fruitful relations since the early days of Independence. It comes to mind the fact that according to our records the only country from South America present at the ceremony of Independence in 1947 was Chile,” noted the Ambassador of Chile in India, Alfonso Silva Navarro.

“[The year] 2008 was auspicious enough to have witnessed the State visit of Ms. Pratibha Patil to Chile, marking a new high in bilateral relations. On the occasion, new understandings were reached in areas such as civil aviation, Antarctica cooperation, science and technology, agriculture and energy, thus deepening the scope of cooperation in these fields,” he added.

The last Presidential visit was by Ricardo Lagos in early 2005. Dr. Bachelet was then Health Minister in his Cabinet and was later shifted as the first woman Defence Minister of Chile before she quit to contest the Presidential elections.

While Dr. Bachelet and her mother were imprisoned and tortured by the Chilean military, her father, Gen. Alberto Bachelet, was accused of “treason against homeland” and died in prison due to strain from torture during the military regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Later, with the return of democracy, Gen. Bachelet’s name was cleared. Earlier, during the tenure of the popular government led by Salvadore Allende, he was asked to head the Price and Supply Committees and was arrested after Gen. Pinochet led a coup on September 11, 1973.

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