For President Gabriel Boric and his team was one of the most significant milestones in his international tours.
This Sunday, in Switzerland, at the closing of the summit for Peace in Ukraine, he was nominated to be one of the four world leaders who would deliver a statement with reflections from the meeting. Furthermore they did Justin Trudeau, from Canada; Nana Akufo-Addo, from Ghana; and the hosts of the event, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, and the president of Switzerland, Viola Amherd.
In that space, Boric distanced himself from those sectors that criticized his presence at the summit – mainly the Communist Party – and responded to those who propose that it is a space of support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
This was said by deputies of the PC and also figures from the Latin American left, such as the former president of Bolvia Evo Moraleswho questioned the summit on his X account with two photographs of Zelensky: one with the President of Argentina, Javier Milei, and another with Boric.
“We are very concerned that leaders from our region join NATO’s warlike logic. This military alliance is a threat to international peace and security. They have a long history of crimes around the world. “The Great Homeland is built by defending the independence, sovereignty and unity of our people,” Morales wrote.
But Boric in his speech distanced himself from those criticisms. “This summit, and these convictions, It is not about NATO, it is not about left or right political ideas, it is not about northern or southern countries. “This is about respecting international law and human rights, those are the guiding principles to be able to live together,” he assured.
In fact, the President signed the commitment along with the majority of the countries that participated in the event. However, there were 13 that did not do so, including Brazil, Mexico and Colombia. That is, Chile opted for a different path than most countries on the Latin American left, which have a position closer to the national PC.
This Sunday, Lautaro Carmona, leader of the PC, joined the questions and fought for an instance in which Russia participates. “It seems to us that the exercise that has been carried out is incomplete, because we must strive for a summit in favor of peace, and a summit in favor of peace is not a partial or unilateral thing. The incumbent parties must be there. “What progress will there be towards peace if one of the parties is absent,” said the PC helmsman.
That community also published a public statement about Chile’s participation in the meeting.
“A partial initiative can be a solidarity activity with one of the parties, but it will not necessarily have the effectiveness of the process to build a political agreement that resolves peace (…). It is urgent, from an independent position, to establish the Summit that, with the participation of the incumbent parties, contributes to a political solution to establish Peace,” says the PC statement.
In any case, it was not the first time that the President made a difference in foreign policy with respect to the communists. When questioned about his participation in the summit and his criticism of Venezuela’s institutions, the President responded that “Chile’s foreign policy is defined by the President of the Republic” and assured that he is not “daunted” by criticism.
During the afternoon of this Sunday the President landed in Paris, France, where he will participate early on Monday, together with the Director General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, in a private meeting with 28 members of the High Level Mechanism of the DSB 4 (Goal of Sustainable Development linked to education). And then he will be at the UNESCO plenary session.
Later, the President will close his tour of Europe with a lunch with the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, at the Palais de l’Élysée.
“I was present at a previous lunch and the truth is that the dialogue was extraordinarily rich. “President Macron is a very intellectually demanding figure and he felt very comfortable with President Boric,” he said. Chancellor Alberto van Klaveren in the prelude to the meeting.
