MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile respects Colombia’s “sovereign” decision on military relations with US

President Uribe is scheduled to visit Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay on Thursday.

Chile respects Colombia's “sovereign” decision to allow the US to use Colombian military bases for counter-narcotics operations in the region, the country's foreign Minister said Wednesday.

Chile respects “the sovereignty, national interest and political decisions of each country”, said Mariano Fernandez, Chile’s Foreign Affairs minister who added that “certain countries have certain agreements with other countries regarding strategic and military issues and we believe you can’t examine an individual case without considering the overall, and therefore all those accords should be respected”.

Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe Wednesday met with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet as part of the Colombian President's South American tour to weaken resistance in the region for the US-Colombian plan for increased US military presence in his country.

Bachelet and other countries last week expressed “concern” about the plan.

Neither Uribe nor Chilean Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez wanted to share much with the press after their meeting. Uribe only said the meeting had been ”very important“ and was ”grateful“ for Bachelet's reception. Fernandez would not add anything to his country's respect for ”sovereign“ decisions made by Colombia.

After his visit to Chile, Uribe left for Argentina, where he was similarly cautious to talk to the press after meeting with President Cristina Fernandez. Speaking to reporters for exactly 33 seconds, he declared that the meeting was ”wide-ranging and covered important themes,” then left without taking questions.

Uribe Tuesday visited Peru and Bolivia and is still to visit Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil.

South American defence union UNASUR is set to meet in Ecuador Saturday. The host country and ally Venezuela have expressed great concern over the increase of US troops in their neighbouring country. Uribe refuses to attend the meeting where the plan will be discussed. Instead, he chose for a diplomatic tour past seven, more moderate, South American countries.