Mexican president confirms postponement of Pacific Alliance summit

Mexico City, Nov 22 (EFE).- Mexico’s president confirmed Tuesday that the Pacific Alliance summit scheduled for this week has been postponed due to the Peruvian legislature’s refusal to allow leftist head of state Pedro Castillo to attend the gathering.

“The Pacific Alliance meeting has been suspended because they didn’t allow the president of Peru to attend and the presidency (of that trade bloc) corresponds to him,” Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said of an event that was to be held Friday in Mexico City, adding that the group may assemble instead in Peru.

AMLO, however, confirmed that the heads of state of two of the other four full members of the alliance – Chile’s Gabriel Boric and Colombia’s Gustavo Petro – will be visiting Mexico City, as will Ecuador’s Guillermo Lasso, whose country is in the process of becoming a full member.

The Mexican president is scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with all three.

AMLO had said on Monday the summit might be canceled due to the absence of Castillo, who faces a constitutional complaint for alleged criminal conspiracy, influence peddling and collusion.

Lopez Obrador, who has stated previously that congressional attempts to oust Castillo are grounded in “racism,” said he will consult with his Alliance partners about the possibility of holding the event in Peru.

“We’re working on that. It’s probable that we can go have the meeting there in … the first week of December, but now that Gustavo Petro and President Boric are coming (to Mexico) … we’re going to discuss this matter,” the Mexican president said.

For his part, Castillo told state-run TV Peru on Tuesday that he welcomes the idea of holding the summit in Peru.

The Peruvian president later tweeted that he appreciates Lopez Obrador’s solidarity and support “in putting the common interest of our peoples above any political irresponsibility that a certain sector caused in impeding” him from traveling to the gathering.

Formally established 10 years ago with the goal of strengthening trade integration, the Pacific Alliance says its full members – Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Chile – are collectively the world’s eighth-largest economy and the eighth-biggest exporter, accounting for 41 percent of Latin America’s gross domestic product and attracting 38 percent of the region’s foreign direct investment.

The summit in Mexico was to have been the first in which all four full members of the Alliance, founded in June 2012 by conservative governments, are led by leftist presidents.

AMLO had used the occasion of the summit to invite other Latin American leftist leaders to Mexico, including Argentine President Alberto Fernandez and Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The president of Costa Rica (Rodrigo Chaves), a Central American country that is in the process of becoming a full member, also had been scheduled to attend.

“For the same reason, neither President-elect Lula nor President Alberto Fernandez of Argentina will be here, but this is their home. We’re very good friends, and surely they’ll come visit us later,” Lopez Obrador said. EFE

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