Along with a call to reactivate Unasur, the president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, lamented in Santiago de Chile that some of his “expressions” are interpreted as “acts of hostility towards Chile” and said that he loves Chileans “much more than what What do you think”.
“Sometimes I see with pain that some expressions that I have with my thoughts are interpreted here in Chile as acts of hostility towards Chile. Really, the only thing I feel for Chile is enormous love,” Fernández said at a joint press conference with his Chilean counterpart, Gabriel Boric.
“Please, stop attributing to me a discomfort with Chile that I don’t have. I love you much more than you think,” added the Argentine leader at the end of his speech.
Fernández’s express trip to Chile sought to tone down after the recent criticism leveled by the Argentine against the Chilean justice system and the diplomatic tensions with the Argentine ambassador to Chile, Rafael Bielsa.
Fernández accused the Chilean Justice of placing itself “at the service of those who persecute opponents”, in a possible allusion to the trial involving former presidential candidate Marco Enríquez-Ominami, a member – like him – of the Puebla Group.
Chilean government officials rejected Fernández’s questions as “impertinent and inappropriate”.
“I have enormous appreciation for Chile for the way in which it perfected and improved its democracy. On September 11, 1973, I marched through the streets of Buenos Aires against Pinochet’s coup,” said Fernández, who confirmed that he accepted the invitation. de Boric to attend the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the military coup on September 11.
Boric, for his part, thanked the help that Argentina sent to Chile last February to combat the deadly wave of fires that devastated the south and said that the friendship between the two countries is “everlasting.”
“Dear President Fernández, welcome to Chile, this is your home,” added the Chilean ruler.
The disagreement between the two governments had already occurred on February 16, when the Argentine president signed with 28 other Latin American leaders, lawyers and judges a document from the “Puebla Group” that criticized the Chilean Justice.
Boric then said he had no interest in an escalation of tension with Argentina, but warned his counterpart of the need to mutually respect the institutions.
A few weeks before there was another controversy between Chile and Argentina, after the leak of a controversial audio in which the then Chilean Foreign Minister, Antonia Urrejola, was heard calling Bielsa an “asshole”.
“President Boric, I am proud to be your friend,” concluded Fernández, who traveled to Santiago on Wednesday morning to commemorate with Boric the 205th anniversary of the “Abrazo de Maipú”, considered the definitive milestone of Chilean independence.
Reactivation of Unasur
During the joint statement that he gave together with Boric at the Executive headquarters, Fernández highlighted the need to reinvigorate the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) as the main forum for cooperation in the region. “Today Argentina has already formalized its entry and tomorrow Brazil will be doing the same,” he stressed.
“I have proposed to President Boric that we have to work together to recreate Unasur, but the Unasur of these times, not the Unasur that we knew, which had a virtue, which could coexist beyond ideological differences. That is already insufficient and we must take it for granted,” said the trans-Andean president.
Along these lines, he stressed that “what we have to guarantee is a Unasur that serves the economic development of our peoples, where we see how we integrate Chilean, Argentinean, Brazilian, and other countries’ companies that transcend the borders of the countries where they are created. and operate in other countries.
Source: Elmostrador
