MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile honours Argentine Foreign Secretary Bielsa.

The Chilean government bestowed Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs Rafael Bielsa with one the country's most important honours, the Great Cross of the Bernardo O'Higgins Merit Order, in recognition for his “constant work encouraging and maintaining the good level of bilateral relation”.

The event is in anticipation of the coming state visit to Chile next March of Argentine president Nestor Kirchner.

The ceremony took place this week in the Chilean embassy in Buenos Aires where Chilean Ambassador Luis Maira highlighted Mr. Bielsa's long record as an academic in Law School, as a statesman and as advisor to Latinamerican governments and international organizations.

"I receive this honour in the name of my country, with the full and emotive feeling which precedes the embracing of two brothers", said Mr. Bielsa who thanked the "undeserved" honour decided by President Ricardo Lagos last January.

Ambassador Maira took advantage of the ceremony to praise President Nestor Kirchner for "his drive which in a short and surprising period of time" took Argentina away from one of its most "threatening and turbulent" periods ever.

"This honour is also an acknowledgement to the administration headed by President Kirchner", indicated the Chilean ambassador adding that the two countries are "in the best stage of its long and fruitful friendly relation".

President Kirchner is scheduled to make a state visit to Chile next March 14, "a visit we are longing for. President Lagos was in Argentina in 2003 and we will be most happy to receive President Kirchner with full state honours", said Ambassador Maira.

President Kirchner's visit to Chile has been postponed several times because of bilateral problems mainly Argentina's decision in 2004 to unilaterally cut the natural gas supply to its neighbour in spite of standing contracts.

Furthermore in 2003 Chilean intelligence officials broke into the Argentine Consulate offices in Punta Arenas and were caught red-handed spying.

Last September Chile named a new Foreign Affairs Minister, Ignacio Walker, who had recently published articles in Santiago's most important daily highly critical of the ruling Peronist party and of President Kirchner himself. This infuriated the Argentine president who cancelled the now March scheduled official visit.

"We're currently in the stage of greatest imaginable friendship and greatest cooperation. We have our differences, disagreements, but with patience and good will we're always in a position to solve them", emphasized Ambassador Maira.

The agenda, full of political and economic issues, for the coming visit is still been ironed out but will be ready on time, revealed Argentine diplomatic sources.

A greater geographic integration by improving access roads to thirteen border crossings and President's Lagos gratitude for Argentina's support to the Chilean candidate, Interior Minister Jose Miguel Insulza, as the next Secretary General of the Organization of American States are some of the most malleable items of the agenda.