Two weeks ago, Guatemala's new president, Bernardo Arevalo was sworn into office, and Belize's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister attended.
We today asked the new Foreign Minister if he had any opportunity to raise that thorny old issue of the Sarstoon protocol. The Minister says that he hopes they can begin making progress towards establishing it:
JO
"You recently went to Guatemala for the inauguration of the new president. Is there any chance to renew the discussions about the Saratoon protocol?"
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Foreign Affairs & Foreign Trade
"We hope so i'm very hopeful that we can do so you know we had an opportunity in Guatemala, a coincidental by product of all the waiting that we had to do was that the Prime Minister and I had an opportunity to spend time with the incoming president and the incoming foreign minister, because for several hours, for example we were all in one room, waiting for the president to be sworn in so we had and on previous occasions. We also had an opportunity to speak with them. So I think we are always very hopeful for Belize. We believe that these are important issues as you all know we are following the process through the ICJ we respect that process but believes his position is that we should not wait for the outcome of the ICG to resolve some of these issues that are challenging us on the ground so the issue of Saratoon for example the issue of the security on the ground the issue of you know, devastation of intrusions into our territory we believe that all of these are very important, urgent matters that require the attention of both governments so we expressed that view to the president and the foreign minister that we are prepared to discuss these matters and we hope we are very hopeful that this new administration that perhaps there can be a reset on these important issues and that in the next few weeks we can have an Opportunity."
