MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mercosur and Unasur “more effective” for South America than OAS

Brazilian Foreign Affairs minister Celso Amorim

Mercosur and Unasur (Union of South American Nations) can be “more effective” than OAS (Organization of American States) in addressing issues of South American countries, said Brazilian Foreign Secretary Celso Amorim currently in Switzerland for a conference on international security.

“The OAS has its role because many of its countries are not Unasur or Mercosur members such as those from Central America, United States, Canada, Mexico and because it also has a more complete juridical organization, which in some cases can be necessary”, said Amorim who is participating in the security conference in Geneva organized by the London based International Institute for Strategic Studies, IISS.

“I believe that for the exercise of good offices among South American countries Unasur or Mercosur, depending on which case, can be more effective”, he added.

“Unasur and Mercosur and entirely complementary”, affirmed Amorim.

Speaking of Unasur, the union of the twelve South American countries, Amorim said “it has proved to be very efficient, discreetly sometimes, as with tensions between Colombia and Venezuela, in which the former Argentine president Nestor Kirchner played a role”.“Even the Colombian chancellor thanked President Lula da Silva and Unasur” for having helped solve the dispute said Amorim.

Colombian Foreign Affairs minister Maria Angela Holguín in an interview a month ago underlined the role undertaken by “the leaders from Brazil and Argentina in the process of normalization of relations between Bogotá and its neighbours”.

Holguin at the time said that the Unasur secretary general (Kirchner) played a significant “role” in the reestablishment of relations between Bogotá and Caracas, a matter which became “a regional issue”, she underlined.

The Colombian official also praised Brazilian president Lula da Silva who had a long conversation “with Chavez and Kirchner, the day before Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos took office last August 7, underlining the importance of re-establishing the relation between neighbours”.