MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Kirchner receives Powell and visits Lula.

Unites States Secretary of State Colin Powell in a brief visit to Buenos Aires (two and a half hours) met Tuesday morning with Argentine President Néstor Kirchner and described the event as an “encounter of friends”.

This is the first top official of the George Bush administration to meet with the new, relatively unknown Argentine president, (in office since May 25), and was interpreted as a first positive approach for both sides given the almost undisputed Washington position in world affairs, and Argentina's recent political and economic turbulence including a massive default on its foreign debt in January 2002.

Mr. Powell arrived in Buenos Aires in an Air Force One aircraft carrying as a special guest Argentine Foreign Affairs Minister Rafael Bielsa with whom he participated in the Organization of American States General Assembly hosted by Chile.

The Buenos Aires Powell stop was just a few hours before president Kirchner left for Brazil on an official state visit to meet with counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to ratify the consolidation of a "strategic Argentina-Brazil alliance", and strengthen Mercosur, the South American trade block that also includes Uruguay, Paraguay and associate members Chile and Bolivia.

During the press conference in the Casa Rosada after meeting with President Kirchner, Mr. Powell underlined the good relations between both countries adding that the Bush administration was willing to grant Argentina strong support to address the still very difficult economic decisions lying ahead.

Argentine Foreign Affairs Secretary Bielsa indicated that Mr. Powell also agreed that the coming discussions of Argentina with the international multilateral credit organizations, (IMF, World Bank), must be focused on the long term and can't be expected to have an immediate response.

Regarding the US sponsored Free Trade Association of the Americas (FTAA) that should be operational by 2005, Mr. Powell said that the Bush administration supports regional agreements and Mr. Bielsa added that during the meeting with President Kirchner there were "no excluding economic formulations", highlighting Argentina's support to the recently free trade agreement signed between United States and Chile.

"It took the Chileans twelve years of negotiations; we've just managed four years, so Argentina has a long distance ahead".

Mr. Powell also admitted that with President Kirchner they discussed the clash between the Argentine Executive and the Supreme Court, highlighting that the Bush administration has no particular position on the issue besides the strict honouring of the Argentine legal process and Constitution.

President Kirchner is attempting to impeach several of the magistrates arguing they have dishonoured the Supreme Court with some of their rulings and attitudes. Actually the Argentine Judicial branch is quiet discredited before public opinion and Mr. Kirchner is determined to end what is described as the "automatic majority" of the Supreme Court, a faithful legacy of the ten years of former president Carlos Menem administration who had them appointed.

The possibility of Argentina sending gendarmes to help with law and order in Iraq as requested by Washington, was not specifically considered. Argentina under previous president Eduardo Duhalde, as most of Latinamerica, criticized the US-UK war against Iraq but now has shown willingness to collaborate in the reconstruction effort however under United Nations initiative. The US Secretary of State recalled that Argentina was a staunch ally during the first Gulf war in 1991.

Mr. Powell who arrived in Buenos Aires at 09:40 took off for the United States at12:15.

Meantime in Brasilia, Presidents Lula da Silva and Kirchner and their closest officials will have a full day of discussions this Wednesday.

However in spite of the different emphasis regarding trade policy and regional blocks, Mr. Lula da Silva is scheduled to meet President Bush in Washington next June 20 and Mr. Kirchner sometime in the coming three months.

In Buenos Aires analysts with some degree of sarcasm speculated that Mr. Powell actually was interested in personally finding out who Mr. Kirchner was closer to: Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, a constant motive of concern for the State Department given his erratic policies, or the more mature, sober and responsible Socialist Chilean president Ricardo Lagos, who in spite of differences over the Iraq conflict has become a reference point for the Bush administration.

With President Kirchner it was a "meeting of friends", a description long disappeared from the Venezuela-US vocabulary.