On Wednesday we reported that Deputy Assistant US Secretary of State, Eric Jacobstein is in Belize for a number of meetings- including a a trilateral meeting with Belize and Guatemala today.
Though Jacobstein was tight-lipped on the details of the meeting, we met the Minister of Foreign Affairs this morning and here's what little he was able to share with us:
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"I think we had very very productive meeting, a very productive impactful discussion with the Under Secretary as well as the ambassador, The US ambassador to Belize was there and as you said, we discussed a number of critically important issues to Belize and to the United States. in terms of Belize Guatemala of course every opportunity we get to engage with our friends or counterparts. We brief them on where we are with Belize Guatemala, and we make the point that Belize is fully committed to the ICJ process. We want a peaceful definitive resolution of this unfounded claim but at the same time we make the fundamental point that there
are a number of issues on the ground and we have to resolve them that cannot wait for the outcome of the courts decision. You know there you are aware of those issues in the in terms of our movements on the Sarstoon for example the deforestation taking place in many of our border communities where Guatemalans are coming into our territory and setting up farms and other things and taking extracting our resources so these are issues that are critically important to us in Belize border in general is trafficking trafficking of drugs, human trafficking these are very very important issues that we discussed and Belize is very concerned about that. So we are very grateful that we have a strong working relationship with our US friends. And they are working with us to address all these important issues I think in a very positive and meaningful way."
