Media Center

Press Release

Colombia Calls for the Summit of the Americas to Become an Established Forum by 2012

Colombia, the host country of the Sixth Summit of the Americas, hopes the 2012 meeting will be “a political forum that will benefit every one and all of the countries that participate,” in the words of the Colombian Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs and National Coordinator of the Colombian Summits Process, Ambassador Miguel Camilo Ruiz, who spoke today during the First Regular Meeting of the Summit Implementation Review Group (SIRG).

At the event, which took place at the headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, D.C., OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza called the Summits of the Americas “a central, relevant and continuous aspect” of the inter-American system.

“Colombia, as Chair of the Summit, wishes to achieve a sense of cooperation and integration based on the acknowledgement of differences and working together in everything that unites us,” declared the Vice-Minister, adding that his country “has the goal of consolidating a good relationship among the countries of the region and allow the Summit of the Americas to become a stronger political forum benefiting each and every one of the participating countries.” Ambassador Ruiz also reiterated the significance of “advancing in the effective implementation of the mandates and commitments of the previous summits, as a key element in maintaining the trust of the people of the hemisphere,” and highlighted the need to “establish a stronger agenda for the Americas that is practical and attainable, and that responds to the necessities and aspirations of its citizens.”

For his part, the OAS Secretary General welcomed the national Summits coordinators, emphasizing the role that organized civil society has played in the framework of these hemispheric meetings. “The full participation of civil society in our deliberations is a distinct trademark of the Organization of American States and the Summits we wish to maintain and continue to strengthen,” declared Insulza, alluding also to the work of the government of Colombia in the follow-up to mandates and the institutional strengthening of the Summits process.

“We have to continue to incorporate the Summit of the Americas into the inter-American system not as an exceptional event but rather as a central, relevant and continuous aspect of this system. The Summit is part of the permanent work of the inter-American system, and is not a side matter. Today its follow-up belongs to the OAS and the rest of the entities of the inter-American system. Its planning fundamentally relies on our structures and our organization together with the country that is in charge of the event,” Insulza concluded.

The agenda of the GRIC Meeting included the presentation of the Summits of the Americas Follow-up System (SISCA) led by the OAS Summits of the Americas, and a space for dialogue with the institutions of the inter-American system that form part of the Joint Summit Working Group (JSWG), about the programs these institutions have implemented involving the agreements adopted at the Fifth Summit.

Photographs of the event are available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-118/10