Peru’s new president fell short of reaffirming that the Andean nation would ban Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from attending a regional summit it is hosting next month, saying on Tuesday that he would leave the matter to top diplomats.
Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra, who had been vice president, abruptly got the top job last week after Pedro Pablo Kuczynski resigned amid growing graft allegations.
A former Wall Street banker who once held US citizenship, Kuczynski had been one of Maduro’s most outspoken critics, deeming him a “dictator” and barring him from the Summit of the Americas that Peru is hosting on April 13 and April 14.
Maduro vowed to attend the summit anyway and his loyalists exulted over Kuczynski’s downfall with a fireworks display last week, but Vizcarra declined to weigh in on the dispute as he focuses on building support across Peru by promising to refocus the government’s attention on domestic problems that had been neglected while Kuczynski struggled to remain in power.
After returning from a coastal region still reeling from severe floods last year, Vizcarra was asked at a news conference what he thought about Maduro being banned from the summit.
“Our foreign policy is so delicate we must leave it in the hands of specialists,” Vizcarra told journalists at the presidential palace. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is taking the corresponding decisions that we’ll support.”
The comment appeared to signal a more hands-off approach to foreign policy.
A spokesman in the ministry said its position on barring Maduro was unchanged, but noted that Vizcarra had not yet sat down to talk with top diplomatic officials.
Vizcarra promised a “completely new” Cabinet upon taking office on Friday last week, but has yet to name his minister of foreign affairs or other appointments.
He said he would unveil his Cabinet on Monday next week.
Vizcarra said there would no changes to the agenda of the Summit of the Americas, which is to celebrate “democratic governance against corruption” in a host nation where three out of four former presidents are subjects in graft probes.
US President Donald Trump and other leaders in the Americas plan to attend the summit.
Vizcarra said that various heads of state, starting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, had called him after he took office to reconfirm their attendance.
“We think the event in Peru is going to be a success,” Vizcarra said.
The former governor of a small mining region, Vizcarra served as the Peruvian ambassador to Canada, as well as vice president, before he was called home to replace Kuczynski.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver