Boric calls for “regional integration” for common causes such as Venezuelan crisis

Santiago de Chile, 14 Mar The President of Chile, Gabriel Boric, announced on Monday the main lines of his foreign policy and reaffirmed his desire to move towards regional integration so that Latin America “will once again have a voice in the world”. At a press conference with foreign correspondents in La Moneda, the young president spoke about the mass exodus of Venezuelans, the climate crisis, relations with Bolivia on the doorstep of the Silala River hearings, the war in Ukraine and the need to build strong and lasting regional organizations. “We must stop creating organizations based on the ideological affinities of the current leaders,” said Boric, who at the age of 36 became the youngest president in Chilean history on Friday. Forums such as “Prosur, Unasur or the Lima Group”, composed exclusively of governments of the same political sign, “have shown that they do not serve to unite or to advance integration,” added the progressive ruler. The former student leader assured that regional integration is “essential” to solve common problems, such as the Venezuelan crisis and the exodus of more than 6 million citizens from that country to other neighboring nations such as Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Chile. Boric, who has been critical since the beginning of the presidential race with the regimes of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, put on the table the possibility of introducing a “quota system” in the region, similar to the one launched by the European Union with the massive exodus of refugees following the war in Syria. “I think it's something where we could all win, both countries deepening our cooperation, as well as many migrants who do so in a situation of great despair,” he added. Chile has been experiencing an unparalleled migration crisis for a year, with hundreds of Venezuelans entering daily through unauthorized border crossings on the border with Bolivia and camping in border towns, where episodes of xenophobia have also been recorded. BOLIVIA, ESCAZÚ AND RUSSIA The president, who confirmed that his first official trip abroad will be to Argentina on a date yet to be confirmed, also referred to the conflict that has existed for decades with Bolivia and urged his counterpart, Luis Arce, to resume relations between the two countries. “We have a lot of integration elements that we can work with. The resumption of diplomatic relations is a point of arrival, I would love to move there, it just depends on the will of both parties,” he said. In March 1978, Bolivia broke off diplomatic relations with Chile and since that date both have relations exclusively at the consular level, without embassies. The cause was the failure of the territorial negotiations that were held due to the dispute over the sea of Bolivia, which lost its coast in favor of Chile at the end of the 19th century, during the Pacific War. “Chile does not negotiate its sovereignty, as I imagine no country does,” he added a few days after the start, on April 1, at the International Court of Justice in The Hague (ICJ), the allegations of Chile's lawsuit against Bolivia over the Silala River. On other issues of international policy, Boric pledged to sign before the next COP27 the Escazú Agreement, considered the first environmental pact in Latin America and the first in the world to contain specific provisions on the protection of environmental defenders. Its predecessor, the conservative Sebastián Piñera, was one of the main drivers and negotiators of the treaty during its first term (2010-2014) and encouraged the rest of the countries to ratify it until at the end of his second term he changed his stance. On the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Boric acknowledged that he was “very concerned” and said that Chile's vote in international organizations “will be sanctioning Russia.” “We are going to have a clear position of respect for human rights, respect for international law, of humbly encouraging our efforts to foster dialogue and the cessation of hostilities and we are talking with the representative of Ukraine in Chile to see how we can provide some level of assistance,” he concluded. CHIEF SSB-JM-MMM/PNM/LLL (photo) (video)