Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said he will travel on Tuesday to the Mercosur summit in Uruguay in his first official foreign trip since undergoing cancer surgery in June and a further sign he is feeling stronger.
The Uruguayan president Jose Mujica lost his temper in an incident with a journalist when he was asked what measures the government was planning to avoid a repeat of the situation with a Spanish flagged vessel chased by an Argentine Coast Guard unit and had to take refuge in Uruguayan waters.
The president of the Paraguayan congress Senator Jorge Oviedo Matto said that Paraguay should withdraw from Mercosur if the block during its Tuesday summit in Montevideo agrees the incorporation of Venezuela “eluding the approval of the Legislative as indicates the Constitution and the Mercosur charter”.
Mercosur member countries meeting in Montevideo for their regular six-month summit are drafting a resolution that would bar Falklands’ flagged vessels from all Mercosur members’ ports, following on the traditional Argentine policy and now openly supported by the Uruguayan government.
Argentine Foreign Affairs minister Hector Timerman publicly thanked and praised on Monday the Uruguayan decision, announced last week, to bar Falklands’ flagged vessels form the port of Montevideo and any other sea or fluvial terminal in the country.
Falkland Islands fishing companies association, FIFCA expressed their “extreme disappointment” with Uruguay’s decision not to allow Falklands’ flagged vessels enter the port of Montevideo, which “will only serve to punish its own people”.
President Barack Obama has accused the government of Venezuela of threatening basic democratic values ahead of elections next year. He added that close relations with Iran and Cuba did not serve the interests of the Venezuelan people.
A two day Mercosur summit begins Monday in Montevideo with Foreign Affairs ministers meeting Monday and the presidents on Tuesday when the rotating chair will be passed from Uruguay to Argentina for the next six month.
Surprise and perplexity has surfaced from the Falkland Islands following the announcement by President Jose Mujica that Falklands’ flagged vessels are barred from Uruguayan ports.
Uruguayan opposition called the government of President Jose Mujica “submissive” and “obsequious” with Argentina for having announced it was barring Falkland Islands flagged vessels from the port of Montevideo.