The President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou, rejected this sunday the Racist gesture by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, to a group of demonstrators from the Armenian community after the inauguration of its embassy in Montevideo this Saturday and noted that it should be “strongly criticized”.
“The community is hurt and rightly so”He said in the presence of journalists. “We spoke with Foreign Minister Bustillo and tomorrow he will be convening the Turkish ambassador in Uruguay. Unfortunate situation. The Armenian-Uruguayan community knows that they have always had us all in the cause of Uruguay, the coalition, the National Party in particular and whoever speaks,” he added.
Çavuşoglu agreed during his visit to the country terms of reference for an FTA and signed an investment protection and promotion treaty with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Francisco Bustillo. After the meeting, The Turkish diplomat went to Plaza Matriz to inaugurate the headquarters of the Turkish embassy in Montevideo. Members of the Armenian community who were demonstrating peacefully were waiting for him there. Nevertheless, the Turkish foreign minister made a gesture in reference to the country terrorist organization Gray Wolves, which generated annoyance among those who were expressing themselves and the immediate reaction of several members of the Armenian community.
Lacalle Pou stated that “advancing on trade issues does not mean” that the government shares “the domestic or foreign policy” of countries like Turkey. “Tomorrow I am going to have a more in-depth meeting on the subject. It was a suggestion made by Turkey towards Uruguay and we intend to open ourselves up to the whole world,” she said, in relation to the FTA.
“With whom we can make progress on commercial issues, we are going to make progress. (But) advance in trade issues with any country in the world does not mean that we share internal or external politics”, clarified.
As an example, the president recalled that during the last electoral campaign he insisted on reaching an FTA with Cuba, despite the ideological differences that it maintains with the government of that country. At that time, his proposal aimed to work on the “economic complementation” of both nations to strengthen Uruguay’s international insertion, after, in his opinion, the first administration of the Broad Front wasted the possibility of reaching an FTA with the United States. in 2006.
“I don’t care if they are communists, socialists or capitalists: if they buy what the Uruguayans do, they are my friends,” he said at the time.
Along these lines, this Sunday he expressed: “If there is something that is clear to them, it is that we do not agree with the Cuban dictatorship. one thing is the work of the Uruguayans and diplomatic relations and another to endorse or confirm some political practices in some countries“.
