The presidents of Argentina and Chile on Thursday said that ideological differences would not keep them from working closely together.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez rejected the idea that her leftist politics would prevent a strong working relationship with Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, a right-wing billionaire whose inauguration last month ended 20 years of center-left rule in the country.
“Some people think the fact that a government has a political side different from that of Argentina could affect relations,” Fernandez said as Pinera shared a stage inside the Casa Rosada, Argentina’s presidential palace. “It’s absurd ... I give all Argentines and Chileans my guarantee that that will never happen.”
PHOTO: REUTERS
While Pinera’s political opponents feared a swing to the right in a country still recovering from its long dictatorship, he has quickly presented himself as a post-ideological leader, impatient to work with anyone who can make progress happen.
His delegation includes Chile’s top communist, and in Argentina, he pointedly criticized those who seem to be obsessed with “nostalgia.”
“Countries with tired spirits only speak and remember the past and fear the future. On the other hand, countries with young spirits not only reaffirm their pasts but also have hope, and know that the best thing is to look ahead,” Pinera said. “The best of our bilateral relationship is ahead of us.”
DEEPER RELATIONS
Chile and Argentina need to deepen every aspect of their relationship, he said, forging new economic, commercial, scientific and cultural ties.
“It seems so absurd to me that we spend thousands and thousands of millions of dollars on bridges and tunnels that bring us together, to encounter a customs process that separates us,” he said. “The time we save using bridges and tunnels we lose waiting in line at the border.”
The solution is not just more money, he said, but a change in attitude among officials in both countries.
Fernandez and Pinera’s predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, signed a treaty last year consolidating the countries’ integration plans. At lunch on Thursday, both leaders signed a presidential declaration reaffirming this and other previous treaties, which among other things address the need for improved border crossings and shared public works.
FIRST TOUR
Pinera, on his first foreign tour as president, goes next to Brazil and then New Orleans, where he hopes to bring lessons learned in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina back to his quake-damaged country.
Then, on Monday and Tuesday, he will join 47 other leaders at a White House summit on nuclear non-proliferation, where Chile will likely be praised for secretly surrendering its last weapons-grade uranium to the US last month.
Pinera is expected to support Brazil’s candidacy for a permanent UN Security Council seat and push for the creation of a public-private investment fund for infrastructure projects in Chile and Brazil, international adviser to the Chilean defense ministry Carlos Maldonados Prieta said.
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