Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­part­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go last night for New York to at­tend the 81st Ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA).

Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed her de­par­ture to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, say­ing she is ex­pect­ed to re­turn on Thurs­day morn­ing.

“I’m leav­ing tonight and re­turn­ing on Thurs­day morn­ing. Min­is­ter Sobers and Mor­ris will ac­com­pa­ny me along with PS Bar­row,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter will be ac­com­pa­nied by For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Nicholas Mor­ris and Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Natasha Bar­row.

Among the an­tic­i­pat­ed en­gage­ments on Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s agen­da is a planned meet­ing with Venezuela’s act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez, against the back­drop of strained diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed last Wednes­day that arrange­ments for the meet­ing had been fi­nalised.

“That arrange­ment has been fi­nalised. We are sched­uled to meet lat­er in the week,” she said in re­sponse to ques­tions from re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment.

The meet­ing comes af­ter months of diplo­mat­ic ten­sions be­tween the two neigh­bour­ing coun­tries.

Cara­cas pre­vi­ous­ly de­clared Per­sad-Bisses­sar per­sona non gra­ta amid ac­cu­sa­tions that Trinidad and To­ba­go was sup­port­ing Unit­ed States mil­i­tary ag­gres­sion against Venezuela.

Asked whether she in­tend­ed to raise that is­sue di­rect­ly with Ro­dríguez dur­ing their meet­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said such diplo­mat­ic mat­ters should be han­dled by the re­spec­tive for­eign min­is­ters.

“I don’t think that’s for me to do. Those are diplo­mat­ic chal­lenges and my Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and their For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ters,” she said.

“I’m not wor­ried, quite frankly.”

The planned meet­ing comes as Port-of-Spain and Cara­cas ap­pear to be seek­ing to re­open diplo­mat­ic chan­nels fol­low­ing the fall­out.

Ear­li­er this month, Sobers led a one-day diplo­mat­ic del­e­ga­tion to Cara­cas, where he met with Venezue­lan For­eign Min­is­ter Félix Plasen­cia on Sep­tem­ber 4.

The vis­it was aimed at re­open­ing for­mal com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels be­tween the two coun­tries.

The high-lev­el en­gage­ment be­tween Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Ro­dríguez is now set to take place on the mar­gins of the UN­GA, pro­vid­ing an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the two neigh­bour­ing coun­tries to ad­dress their strained re­la­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to un­der­take sev­er­al en­gage­ments dur­ing her brief vis­it to New York be­fore re­turn­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go on Thurs­day morn­ing.