MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peruvian ministers and legislators “invade” Chile

Half of the Peruvian cabinet, --eight ministers--, will be visiting Chile in the coming days in the framework of the bilateral growing links sponsored by Peruvian president Alan Garcia and openly supported by the Michelle Bachelet administration.

Defense and Foreign Affairs ministers, Jose Antonio Belaunde and Allan Wagner are scheduled to participate with their Chilean counterparts in the Political Consultation and Coordination Standing Committee or 2 plus 2, which regularly meet to address sensitive issues as military expenditure and foreign policy issues.

Ministers from both countries of Education, Public Health, Labor, Women affairs and Planning will meet to create the "Social Integration Council" with the purpose of coordinating bilateral public policies in those fields and International Trade Minister Mercedes Araoz will be arriving with a delegation of thirty Peruvian businessmen to promote trade and reciprocal investment.

Similarly a group of Peruvian members of Congress headed by the Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Senator Victor Souza will be joining their counterparts in the Chilean Legislative

On Tuesday the new Peruvian ambassador Hugo Otero Lanzarotti, whose mother and two brothers are Chileans and is a very close associate of President Garcia, will be presenting his credentials to President Bachelet in Government House. The Peruvian congressional and business delegations have been invited to the ceremony.

Since taking office last July President Garcia has made close relations with neighboring Chile one of his administration's main policies, with the purpose of learning about "the extraordinary development and advances" achieved by Chile in the last twenty years and which have made the country the region's most stable and reliable country.

President Garcia has repeatedly said that his goal in his five year mandate is to overtake, with Chilean advice, the macroeconomic data of its powerful southern neighbor.

Chile has praised the Garcia administration attitude since both countries have long standing rivalries in border and defense affairs dating back to the Pacific war of 1879.