MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine/Chilean ministerial summit this week in Buenos Aires

Jorge Taiana will be chairing the meeting

Argentine and Chilean cabinet ministers will be meeting next Thursday in Buenos Aires to advance in the integration process and address an agenda of bilateral issues, according to reports in the Argentine capital.

“Both countries are advancing towards the signing of an integration agreement which will complement the Peace and Friendship Treaty with a legal framework to confirm integration activities so far and to project further actions in the future”, said Argentine diplomatic sources.

This meeting will be second at full ministerial level, --the first was last December-- since Presidents Michelle Bachelet and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner decided to speed and broaden fields of integration.

Thursday meeting will be chaired by Argentina’s Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Taiana and besides bilateral issues particularly communications and physical integration, ministers will address regional and global political affairs.

The Chilean ministers include: Foreign Affairs, Interior, Mining, Agriculture, Education, Public Works, Housing and Defence.

The meeting is also held in the framework of the 25th anniversary celebrations of the 1984 Peace and Friendship Treaty between Argentina and Chile which definitively established the border line from the Beagle Channel to Cape Horn.

In 1978 both countries almost went to war over territorial disputes in the extreme south of the continent and were only stopped thanks to the mediation of Pope John Paul II.

Actually Mrs. Kirchner and Bachelet are planning to travel together to the Vatican next November to meet with Pope Benedict XVI.