BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Dec 23, CMC – A senior Barbados government minister is suggesting that Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders meet “behind closed doors” to discuss “concerns on all sides” amidst fears of a split within the 15-member regional integration grouping.
Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and Senior Minister, Kerry Symmonds said while he is aware of the “uncompromising voice which is perhaps unaccommodating” from the Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, he does not think “I’m hearing genuine disharmony”.
“I think, though, that it is always helpful for leaders to have dialogue. And if I could risk saying something to my superiors because all of the leaders are obviously my superiors, I would want to say that it is perhaps best to have the dialogue behind closed doors and that there’s a sharing of concerns on all sides.
“I don’t think that anybody’s concern is illegitimate in this instance because the national security interest of any of our countries is a common national security interest. And interestingly, in all of this, the missing thing that has not hit the headlines is the basic fact that in CARICOM’s charter… security is seen in CARICOM as a regional undertaking. We don’t really speak to security as one island and not the other,” Symmonds added.
(Details in Politics section)
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