Presidents Leonel Fernández and Barack Obama Discuss Bilateral Issues

Presidents Leonel Fernández and Barack Obama Discuss Bilateral Issues

Presidents Leonel Fernández and Barack Obama discussed several bilateral issues of common interest in a 45-minute meeting in which President Obama reiterated the hemisphere’s eternal gratitude to the Dominican people and President for their role in helping their Haitian neighbors following last January’s earthquake and for President Fernández’s leadership in helping solve regional conflicts.

President Obama praised President Fernández’s rapid response to the Haitian earthquake “which saved the lives of hundreds of Haitians,”

President Obama praised President Fernández’s rapid response to the Haitian earthquake “which saved the lives of hundreds of Haitians,” reported the President’s Office of Information, Press and Publicity.
 
At the end of the working meeting between the two presidents, Fernández went over the recovery efforts being carried out in Haiti by the international community and emphasized the need for more assistance, pointing out to those commitments made at the Summit on Haiti recently held in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

Obama has instructed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to arrange a UN General Assembly meeting for heads of states with the goal of further deepening recovery efforts and to call for the immediate application of the recovery plan.

Other issues covered by Obama and Fernández included citizen security and the war on drug traffickers in Central America and the Caribbean.  

Fernández explained that drugs cultivated in South American countries are transported by networks of gangs which use the Dominican Republic and Haiti as a bridge, paying large sums to those who work with them, thus generating an increase in crime in the country.

Obama showed interest, on the other hand, with the DR being turned into a regional center for the promotion of clean energy projects.

hile suggesting a global political strategy of cooperation, combat and struggle against the plague of drug trafficking, the Dominican leader said this phenomenon is threatening security and stability in Latin America.

President Obama said his government will give all the necessary support to promote the Security for the Caribbean Basin Initiative which his government sponsors. Fernández proposed that the Dominican Republic should be the site of a regional meeting in which Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru and the Caribbean and Central American countries should adopt a multi-regional plan to combat drug trafficking.

Related to this issue, at a joint press conference, President Obama said his government would also make an effort to apply policies to decrease the demand for drugs and would adopt measures to punish those involved in money laundering.

On the topic of democracy in Honduras, Obama thanked Fernández for his role in positively mediating the situation that led to a solution of the conflict in the Central American country. 

Obama elaborated on the Dominican role in the Honduran conflict saying that the new Honduran authorities headed by President Porfirio Lobo indeed had a genuine interest in fulfilling the requisites put forward by the Organization of American States.  

Likewise President Fernández suggested the need for a major definition of the international community with relation to the overthrow of governments and the fulfillment of the OAS Democratic Charter as a way of discouraging these anti-democratic actions.

Obama showed interest, on the other hand, with the DR being turned into a regional center for the promotion of clean energy projects. He said the US government will give all the support necessary for the DR and the rest of the region to carry out these energy-generating and unconventional projects.

He referred to a conversation he had with Brazilian President Inacio Lula Da Silva about his country cooperating in the carrying out of programs that produce clean energy.

Obama sent a greeting to the Dominican public and stressed the friendship that has been cultivated with their president whom he met at the Summit of the Americas held in Trinidad and Tobago last year.

The US President also made reference to the important role the Dominican Republic has played in the training of baseball players for the Major Leagues in the United States.

Also present at the working meeting of the two presidents held in the Oval Office of the White House were Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Valerie Jarrett, special advisor; General James Jones, National Security Advisor; Christopher Lambert, Business Attache at the Dominican Embassy and Dan Restrepo, Special Assistant to President Obama and Senior Director Senior of Western Hemispheric Affairs.