MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Taiana resigns after “strong exchange” with Mrs. Kirchner; Timmerman replaces him

Ambassador in Washington Hector Timmerman and CFK ‘sherpa’ in the G20 summits

Argentine Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Taiana and a close ally of the ruling Kirchner couple since 2003, unexpectedly resigned Friday allegedly because of “lack of support and differences” in the implementation of the country foreign policy.

He will be replaced by Argentine ambassador in Washington Héctor Timerman who is scheduled to take office next Tuesday.

According to the first reports in the Argentine press, Taiana decided to present his “indeclinable” resignation following a strong discussion on the phone with President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner Friday morning. He immediately hand wrote his resignation letter and presented it to the Executive’s legal and technical Secretary Carlos Zannini.

Early afternoon cabinet chief Anibal Fernandez announced to the press in Government House of Taiana’s resignation, “on strictly personal grounds” but took no questions.

The surprise step down comes in the eve of Taiana’s trip to New York where he was to present Argentina’s case before the UN C-24 decolonization committee demanding immediate sovereignty discussions with Britain regarding the Falklands and other South Atlantic islands.

Sources close to Taiana revealed that the former minister resigned because of the “lack of support and differences in the implementation of political decisions involving the display of Argentina’s foreign policy”. Also allegedly the word “disloyalty” in the exchange with Mrs. Kirchner triggered Taiana’s immediate reaction.

However in spite of the “strong exchange”, Taiana wrote he was extremely grateful for the opportunity granted “to collaborate with you in defending the national interest in the foreign affairs field”.

 Argentine analysts said that several issues have marked Taiana’s differences with the Kirchners particularly the close Argentine relation with the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez.

Precisely this week a former Argentine ambassador in Caracas had been summoned by Congress to inform about growing claims of corruption involving a whole range of business deals between the Venezuelan president and the Kirchner couple. However the ambassador “following on superior orders did not turn out”.

Apparently the growing bilateral trade with Venezuela demanded (demands¿?) from Argentine business men the payment of an established percentage to close aides of the Kirchner couple to have the deals approved.

Furthermore the G-20 negotiations of which Argentina is a full member, as well as close relations with Washington, moved in a parallel tier managed directly by Mrs. Kirchner and ambassador Timerman.

Taiana was also left exposed when Mrs. Kirchner unexpectedly and a few hours before leaving for Beijing, cancelled a long elaborated state visit to China. Earlier this month Taiana during the inauguration of the Argentine pavilion in Shanghai’s world expo announced a new date for the visit, next July.

The former minister apparently was also irritated with the reiterated leaks of the private talks with Uruguay regarding the several years pulp mill dispute which finally found a way out this week when pickets decided to suspend during 60 days the blockade on a bridge leading to Uruguay.

Taiana, 60, with a degree in Sociology belongs to the orthodox cadres of the ruling Peronist movement in Argentina. His father was the personal doctor of former leader Juan Domingo Peron. He began in politics with the publication of a party newsletter and in the seventies was next to his father when he was named Education minister in the last presidency of Peron.

In 1975 he was jailed for eight years by the military dictatorship, mostly in Rawson, Patagonia. On his release he worked for human rights organizations and became an expert in the subject and foreign relations having occupied a bench at the Inter American Human Rights Commission in Washington.

Former Economy minister Domingo Cavallo, who first was ex President Carlos Menem firs Foreign Secretary, included Taiana in his team as head of relations with international organizations. He was later ambassador in Guatemala.

In May 2003 when Nestor Kirchner took office he was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs next to Rafael Bielsa. He is named minister in 2005 and ratified by Mrs Kirchner in December 2007.

“The only good thing this government had left is gone”, said Elisa Carrió head of one of Argentina’s main opposition coalitions.