The United States said on Monday it was looking for ways to represent the peoples of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua at a summit next month after threats of boycotts over the exclusion of their governments.
The United States welcomes Latin American leaders to Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas June 6-10, part of President Joe Biden’s efforts to promote democracy and address migration and climate change.
US officials said they formally contacted other nations last week to attend and may receive more invitations.
“We are still evaluating options on how to best incorporate the voices of the Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan peoples into the summit process,” an administration official said.
The State Department has previously expressed confidence in “robust” turnout in Los Angeles, without disclosing the guest list as of yet.
The top US official for Latin America, Brian Nichols, said earlier that he did not expect invitations for officials from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, as the governments do not respect the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter.
But Cuba was invited to summits in 2015 in Panama and 2018 in Peru. Since then, Biden has mostly stuck to a reversal by his predecessor Donald Trump of a communist-led US overture to the island.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of the left, has threatened to boycott the summit if the United States does not invite all countries.
Since then, the leaders of Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras and the 14-nation Caribbean bloc have also cast doubt on their participation, while Chile has joined calls for the widest possible participation.
Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said López Obrador raised the issue in virtual talks last week with Chris Dodd, a former US senator who is serving as a special adviser to Biden at the summit.
“It was a pretty frank conversation,” Ebrard said.
He said that the Mexican president made it clear that “there should be no exclusions” and that the region was ready to “enter a new historical stage” of unity like the European Union.
Another question mark is whether Biden will invite Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader whom Washington considers the legitimate interim president of Venezuela.
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