The president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, arrived in Venezuela to participate this Wednesday in the ALBA bloc summit, which will bring together other leaders such as Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba and the Bolivian Luis Arce.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil received Ortega at the Simón Bolívar airport in Caracas. “The commander will be participating in the ALBA-TCP Summit along with other regional leaders, with the aim of increasing cooperation and solidarity, and strengthening this bloc,” he wrote on the X social network.
Díaz-Canel and Arce are scheduled to arrive in the next few hours. The prime ministers of Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Gaston Browne and Ralph Gonsalves respectively, were among the first to arrive in the Venezuelan capital.
The meeting’s agenda has not been published yet.
“Today more than ever the union of our people is essential. Imperialism declines and becomes even more dangerous,” wrote former vice president Jorge Arreaza, now secretary general of the bloc of 10 countries.
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“In the face of diversity, we must continue to advance towards the integration of our America and the development of people,” wrote host Nicolás Maduro.
The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) was born in 2004 by the now deceased presidents Hugo Chávez, of Venezuela, and Fidel Castro, of Cuba, in response to Washington’s failed project to create the Free Trade Area. of the Americas (FTAA).
It is currently made up of Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Grenada and Cuba.
The last ALBA summit was held in December 2022 in Havana. Then, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro condemned the criticism of the “cowardly left” against Ortega after the Chilean president Gabriel Boric spoke out against human rights violations and political prisoners in Nicaragua.
Likewise, Díaz-Canel and Arce supported the then vice president of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner, convicted of corruption.
Related news: Ortega cancels appointment of defense, military, naval and air attaché in Venezuela
