Argentina President slams US for excluding some countries from Summit

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Argentine President Alberto Fernandez has criticized the United States for not inviting all American countries to attend the Summit of the Americas.

At the plenary session of the summit, Fernandez said that "I am sorry that everyone, who should have been, could not attend. I speak as the interim chairman of CELAC [Community of Latin American and Caribbean States]."

He pointed out that Cuba had been under blockade for more than 60 years while Venezuela was also under serious pressure.

"We definitely would like to have another Summit of the Americas. With the absence of these countries, we are facing a challenge to prevent that in the future," the Argentine President considered.

It is noteworthy that the ninth Summit of the Americas is taking place in Los Angeles from Monday to Friday.

The White House had confirmed that US President Joe Biden did not invite Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to the summit, which prompted some other leaders to refrain from visiting the summit.

Officials in Washington laid down an alibi for not inviting the three countries, claiming that their "human rights and democracy records are concerns" that "weighed too heavily against inviting them," according to a source.

Mexican President boycotts the Summit

In response, Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador declared on Monday that he would be absent from the regional Summit of the Americas in the United States.

In his daily press conference, Obrador said he will not go to the summit, adding that he thinks "it is necessary to change the policy that has been imposed on us for centuries: exclusion."

"You cannot have a Summit of the Americas if you do not have all the countries of the Americas attending," Lopez Obrador considered.

Maduro hails Obrador's decision

In response, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro celebrated the "courage and clarity" of his Mexican counterpart Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for choosing not to attend the Summit.

Maduro considered the exclusion to have been "an act of discrimination" and an attempt by the US to "ensure the summit would fail."

Exclusion "reflects the US' arrogance"

The Cuban revolutionary government had released a statement denouncing its exclusion from the Summit, saying that this exclusion "reflects the US' arrogance," its fear of hearing truths that are not to its liking, and its keenness on preventing attendees from discussing important and complex issues relevant to the Americas.