MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina to host 2010 Ibero-American summit in Mar del Plata

The summit was confirmed following a meeting between President Cristina Kirchner and Enrique Iglesias

Mar del Plata, Argentina will host the next Ibero-American summit in November 2010 in coincidence with the bicentennial of the country, announced Ibero-American chairman Enrique Iglesias following a meeting with President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in New York.

“The meeting with President Fernandez de Kirchner was geared mainly to prepare the ground for next year’s Ibero-American summit which will take place in Argentina”, said Iglesias. He added the summit “will coincide with the celebration of the bicentennial of the May Revolution”.

He also announced that the main topic and challenge for the coming summit will be education.

“Basically the idea is to try and approve a program called 20/21 which is planned to analyze how we will reach the XXI century in that field, “hopefully with the best prepared generation of the continent, following a massive quality education effort”.

The meeting with Mr. Iglesias was part of a round of talks Mrs. Kirchner is holding in New York in anticipation of her speech before the UN General Assembly this week.

On Thursday Mrs. Kirchner will be present at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh. Argentina, Brazil and Mexico represent Latinamerica in the global leaders meeting.

Mrs. Kirchner agenda also included a conference at Columbia University and a meeting with the Inter American Development Bank president Luis Alberto Moreno who promised full support for Argentina in discussions with the Club of Paris on defaulted debt.

The administration of President Cristina Kirchner is trying to normalize relations with the Club of Paris and holdouts from the 2005 restructuring of its massive sovereign default, which limits Argentina’s access to international money markets.