PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Caribbean Community (CARICOM) chairman, Prime Minister Dr. Terrance Drew, is to hold talks with Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, “this week,” the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat announced on Wednesday.
It gave no definitive date for the talks between the two regional leaders. Still, it said that the St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister, who assumed the chairmanship of the 15-member regional integration grouping earlier this month, will be accompanied by the CARICOM Secretary-General, Dr Carla Barnett.
“The meeting is part of the Chair’s focus on face-to-face discussions with regional leaders,” the statement said, adding that the CARICOM chairman met last week with the new Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Godwin Friday, in Kingstown.
CARICOM leaders are due to meet in St. Kitts and Nevis from February 24-27. In recent times, the Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister has been critical of the integration movement following her country’s support for the United States war on drugs in the Caribbean.
Last December, Persad-Bissessar said the regional organisation was “not a reliable partner at this time” and that every sovereign state must be prepared to accept the consequences of its foreign and domestic policy choices as she defended the United States’ announcement of partial entry restrictions on nationals of Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica.
“CARICOM cannot continue to operate in this dysfunctional and self-destructive manner,” Persad-Bissessar said, highlighting what she described as poor management, lax accountability, factional divisions, destabilising policies, and inappropriate meddling in domestic politics by some member states.
She also said that the organisation’s support for the then Nicolas Maduro regime in Venezuela, which has been accused of human rights violations and threats against CARICOM members, further undermines its credibility.
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