Dominican Foreign Minister Miguel Vargas highlighted the progress made by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in the last year, at the inauguration of the meeting of the bloc Foreign Ministers.
He delivered a summary of the work of his country in the pro tempore presidency of the mechanism of dialogue and political agreement to his counterparts from the nations of the region, gathered at a convention center in Punta Cana (east),
'We can say that we have taken a step forward in consolidating CELAC as the voice of our region, the most important interlocutor in Latin America and the Caribbean vis-à-vis the most important actors in the international community,' he said.
In this regard, he highlighted the holding of 13 meetings in the Dominican Republic on priority issues, as well as the work on deepening the actions with a view to the goal of eradicating hunger.
The meeting of foreign ministers precedes the V Summit of Heads of State and Government of the CELAC, which will be inaugurated here in the afternoon.
According to the Dominican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the leaders are expected to approve a political declaration and 20 notes on other specials issues, and that Dominican Republic hands over the pro tempore presidency to El Salvador.
The need to end the US economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba is among the topics present in the texts, as well as other issues related to food security, migration and development, and global drug problems.
Topics of nuclear disarmament, gender, advancement of women, financing for development, the return to Cuba of the territory occupied by the United States naval base in Guantanamo and issues of indigenous languages, among others, also stand out.
CELAC, which brings together all the nations of the Latin American continent except the United States and Canada, had its first presidential meeting in Chile in 2013, the second in Cuba (2014), the third in Costa Rica (2015) and the fourth in Ecuador (2016).