MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Walker incident is over, but read Peron's book?

Argentine and Chilean Foreign Affairs ministers considered this Monday in Montevideo, Uruguay that the diplomatic controversy between both countries was over.

"The interests of our nations are far above personal opinions", repeated Rafael Bielsa during the XIIIth ALADI General Assembly meeting in Montevideo where he worked next to his Chilean counterpart Ignacio Walker and held a fifteen minutes private meeting with him.

"It's absolutely over", underlined Mr. Walker who was named Foreign Affairs minister last October first but it was soon discovered that last May in the midst of the gas crisis with Argentina he wrote a column in EL Mercurio describing Peronism as "neo fascist" and President Kirchner a "populist", which obviously infuriated Argentine neighbours.

"We actually only dedicated three of the fifteen minutes to the issue, the rest of the time we talked about the future. We're very close to Argentina and we're preparing to celebrate the twenty years of the Peace and Friendship agreement", said Mr. Walker.

Mr. Bielsa indicated both countries have "a vast agenda to address which exceeds by far any ministerial statement".

"The meeting was constructive with a sense of future", added Mr. Walker.

A possible presidential encounter of Mr. Ricardo Lagos and Mr. Nestor Kirchner was anticipated for the coming Rio Group summit next November 4/5.

Both ministers also decided that Wednesday October 20 the bi-national Argentine-Chilean energy committee will be meeting to plan and schedule 2005 energy requirements.

Mr. Bielsa and Mr. Walker actually had began the "de-freezing" operation during a "protocol" meeting Sunday evening at a cocktail hosted by Uruguayan Foreign Affairs minister Didier Opertti.

Both ministers chatted before television cameras and had pictures taken of them shaking hands.

However Mr. Bielsa took advantage of the opportunity and presented Mr. Walker a gift of two books on Argentine foreign policy: one written by revered Peronist Senator Antonio Cafiero and a second which is a collection of articles from former President Juan Domingo Peron under the pseudonym Descartes.

In his book Mr. Peron emphasizes the importance of an Argentine-Brazil-Chile axis looking ahead to the establishment of a strong political pole in South America.

"Mr. Walker was surprised by the gift. He wasn't expecting it. It's rather funny since he had written that the true frontier between Chile and Argentina was Peronism and not the Andes", said Eduardo Valdés cabinet chief of Mr. Bielsa.

"Mr. Bielsa wanted to emphasize to Mr. Walker the importance Peronism attributes to the Argentine-Chilean relation".

Mr. Walker said that Chile's participation in the ALADI Foreign Affairs ministers meeting ratifies "our commitment with the region; the main priority of our foreign policy".