MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Malcorra tries to build a consensus on 'State objectives' with former ministers

In the picture six of the ministers that attended the event at the ministry with Susana Malcorra at the center

In another attempt to display unity and consensus on 'State objectives' policy, Argentina's foreign minister Susana Malcorra welcomed six of her predecessors for lunch and a “frank” exchange of points of view on Argentina’s foreign policy.

 Malcorra said that all of the foreign ministers approved of the highlighting of human rights as central to Argentina’s foreign policy agenda and that she had even received some useful recommendations.

The meeting at the Palacio San Martín brought together former Foreign minister Susana Ruiz Cerruti (Raúl Alfonsín), Domingo Cavallo (Carlos Menem), Adalberto Rodríguez Giavarini (Fernando de la Rúa), Carlos Ruckauf (Eduardo Duhalde), Rafael Bielsa and Jorge Taiana (Néstor Kirchner).

Absent were Dante Caputo (Alfonsín) and Hector Timerman (Cristina Fernandez) as they are currently not in Buenos Aires City.

Last week Malcorra also attended a similar event, but hosted by CARI, the Argentine Council of International Affairs, which the minister described as an “extension of the foreign ministry”.

On her arrival to CARI, Malcorra was received by Rodriguez Giavarini, the current chairman of the organization and during the event she sat next to Jorge Taiana. Malcorra said that her years in the United Nations had helped her to forge foreign relations as “a State policy” and pledged she would look for the ”national interest in the grey (areas)” and ratified a policy of 'open doors'.

As to foreign trade, the minister pointed out that the ideal is for Argentina to act and perform as a whole.

Malcorra also mentioned the dispute over the Falklands/Malvinas arguing it should not impede acknowledging that ”relations between the UK and Argentina have a lot of other areas in which we have to work”.

“It is a basic principle that in any bilateral relation there will be a common agenda of mutual interest, and there will be areas in which we will have differences”, insisted Malcorra.

Thus there will be no closed doors to bilateral trade “since that is against the interests of Argentina” and underlined “clearly we will have areas of difference, but in the meantime we will continue to build on a joint agenda because that is the only way of giving Argentina all the opportunities”.