KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Pe­ru’s Am­bas­sador to T&T, Clau­dia Giu­liana Be­tal­leluz Otiu­ra, has thanked this coun­try for do­nat­ing vi­tal im­munoglob­u­lin used to treat pa­tients with Guil­lain-Bar­ré syn­drome, de­scrib­ing the ges­ture as a sign of deep­en­ing bi­lat­er­al ties.

She de­liv­ered her re­marks at Mille Fleurs, Port-of-Spain, dur­ing Pe­ru’s Na­tion­al Day cel­e­bra­tions mark­ing the 204th an­niver­sary of the coun­try’s in­de­pen­dence.

“This vi­tal sup­port ar­rived fol­low­ing close lo­gis­ti­cal co­or­di­na­tion be­tween our re­spec­tive Min­istries of Health, fa­cil­i­tat­ed by our Em­bassy,” Am­bas­sador Be­tal­leluz Otiu­ra said. “We are pleased to con­firm that the do­na­tion was suc­cess­ful­ly re­ceived this past June. This ges­ture of sol­i­dar­i­ty re­flects the strength of the ties be­tween our na­tions and our shared com­mit­ment to co­op­er­a­tion in pub­lic health.”

She not­ed that the Na­tion­al Day event was not on­ly a com­mem­o­ra­tion of Pe­ru’s in­de­pen­dence but al­so a cel­e­bra­tion of the “en­dur­ing and dy­nam­ic” re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two na­tions.

“Ours is a re­la­tion­ship not on­ly de­fined by diplo­ma­cy and trade but al­so en­riched by shared his­to­ries, vi­brant cul­tures, and re­silient com­mu­ni­ties,” she said. “For Pe­ru, Trinidad and To­ba­go is a val­ued part­ner, promi­nent in the re­gion, a leader with­in the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty, an ad­vo­cate of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic tra­di­tion, and a trust­ed voice.”

Diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween Pe­ru and T&T were es­tab­lished in 1968 and have since ex­pand­ed to in­clude co­op­er­a­tion in ar­eas rang­ing from se­cu­ri­ty and dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness to ed­u­ca­tion, cul­tur­al ex­change and trade.

Am­bas­sador Be­tal­leluz Otiu­ra point­ed to a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) signed in March 2024 by then For­eign Min­is­ters Dr Amery Browne and Javier González-Olaechea dur­ing the VI­II Sum­mit of Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment of the Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines. The agree­ment for­malis­es a mech­a­nism for po­lit­i­cal con­sul­ta­tions and opens new av­enues for col­lab­o­ra­tion in com­merce, in­vest­ment and re­gion­al af­fairs.

“In the in­ter­est of mu­tu­al ben­e­fit, my coun­try looks for­ward to the first meet­ing un­der this mech­a­nism be­ing held in the near fu­ture,” she added.

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers al­so ref­er­enced the MOU in his re­marks, call­ing it a frame­work for “an in­ten­si­fied part­ner­ship” be­tween both na­tions.

“In our con­sul­ta­tions un­der this Agree­ment, may we con­tin­ue to re­view our coun­tries’ mu­tu­al in­ter­ests in fields such as the po­lit­i­cal are­na, bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion, rec­i­p­ro­cal sup­port in can­di­da­tures, in­vest­ment, trade and oth­er is­sues mo­ti­vat­ed by our com­mon goals of pro­mot­ing and en­cour­ag­ing the progress of our great na­tions,” Sobers said.

“In this spir­it, Trinidad and To­ba­go looks for­ward with great an­tic­i­pa­tion to for­ti­fy­ing our long­stand­ing part­ner­ship that so pro­found­ly unites our peo­ples.”

Un­der the agree­ment, the two coun­tries will hold pe­ri­od­ic po­lit­i­cal con­sul­ta­tions—every two years or as mu­tu­al­ly agreed—to re­view the state of bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions, iden­ti­fy ways to en­hance co­op­er­a­tion, and ex­change views on re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al is­sues of mu­tu­al in­ter­est.

With pub­lic health co­op­er­a­tion now com­ple­ment­ing a widen­ing po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic agen­da, both gov­ern­ments sig­nalled their in­tent at the Na­tion­al Day cel­e­bra­tion to deep­en ties that have en­dured for more than half a cen­tu­ry.