MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paraguay insists in reviewing all decisions adopted by Mercosur during its 14-month suspension

Minister Loizaga, Venezuelan relations and Mercosur run on different tracks

Foreign minister Eladio Loizaga said Paraguay will hold before Mercosur the same position it sustained at the Unasur summit in Suriname requesting that all decisions adopted during the last year and two months in which the country was suspended, are formally analyzed.

Loizaga on Monday gave some details of Paraguayan president Horacio Cartes participation at the Unasur, Union of South American Nations summit which marked the formal return of Paraguay to the regional group.

The Paraguayan official underlined the one paragraph addition to the “Paramaribo Declaration” which expresses Paraguay’s right to analyze all decisions adopted by Unasur during its absence motivated by the suspension decided by the other eleven members as a consequence of the removal from office following political impeachment with an overwhelming vote, of former president Fernando Lugo.

Regarding the meeting in Paramaribo of Cartes with his Venezuelan peer Nicolas Maduro, sponsored and with the participation of Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, the foreign minister said the two leaders only spoke about the bilateral relation and not Mercosur, from which Paraguay was suspended in June 2012

“Cartes spoke with Maduro about the re-launching and normalization of diplomatic relations in the future”, said Loizaga.

“Mercosur and relations with Venezuela are on different tracks and in this we are working with the foreign ministers of other countries; we will inform when the time comes. But will continue to support dialogue, and there is a clear willingness from all Mercosur and Unasur members to continue advancing on this approach” added Loizaga.

More specifically on Mercosur, Loizaga said that there will be no reincorporation of Paraguay since “we never abandoned Mercosur; Paraguay is a founding member and continues as such in the recovery of the rights that belong to Paraguay from the very beginning of the Asuncion treaty that gave birth to Mercosur”.

In June 2012 after suspending Paraguay the other Mercosur members approved the incorporation of Venezuela as full member, a condition that had been blocked for several years by the Paraguayan Senate.

The Mercosur charter says that the incorporation of any new full member must be ratified by all four founding members and the full presence of the four, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Paraguay and Venezuela recalled their ambassadors because of the events of June 2012 with the removal of Lugo and his replacement by Federico Franco, a government which Caracas and the rest of Mercosur refused to recognize. Maduro then Foreign minister of deceased president Hugo Chavez was caught on video trying to convince Paraguayan military commanders to take to the streets in support of Lugo. The Paraguayan Senate declared him ‘persona non grata’.