In September, Belize and Guatemala signed onto the 'framework of negotiating and confidence building measures' which bound both countries to either resolve the dispute around the negotiating table or let the International Court decide.
Belize won the coin toss for the first meeting which began yesterday in San Pedro Town. Belize's Chief Negotiator, Ambassador Assad Shoman sat across the table from Guatemala's Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorge Briz Abulrach as well as the country's defense Minister while the Organization of American States' Ambassador Raul Largo mediated the meeting. So how did the first round go? Well, they briefed the press in San Pedro Town this morning. Ambassador Shoman and Foreign Minister Briz say they will be picking up where the last negotiations left off.
Assad Shoman, Belize's Chief Negotiator
"We've asked the OAS to bring together everything that we have put to them, and it's a big job because we have thousands of pages of documents that are lodged there, both from Guatemala and from Belize, and to distill what is there into something that we can work with, and continue to deal with in a certain order because the Guatemalan claim involves both continental territory, island territory, and maritime areas. And they will distinguish between those, with regard to fact and with regard to law, and then they will recommend to us, which one of those issues we should begin with, so that we move in an orderly fashion and at the next meeting we will deal with whatever issue they recommend.
We are here to work for a good understanding and for an agreement that will benefit both countries and both peoples. So there's no question of our accepting any bad arrangement, we are here to work for a good resolution; as the thing says, an honorable and equitable and definitive resolution of this dispute. We need to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and get it out of the way and continue on a new path, working together. The word my friend uses is, 'nuevo era,' a new era of working together in order to attack the real problems that affect us and our peoples, and cooperate along these lines."
That video is courtesy our colleagues in San Pedro at the San Pedro Sun. At the meeting they also decided on an initial agenda for a "joint commission" which will focus on both economic and security issues. Under the terms of this arrangement, both sides have to meet every 45 days and the next meeting will be held in Guatemala in January.
