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Possible meeting with Obama gets complicated
La Nacion
April 04, 2010

The diplomatic request from Argentina hasn't found a place on the President's agenda, says the U.S. government

Silvia Pisani
US Correspondent

WASHINGTON.- A growing silence is surrounding the visit that Cristina Kircher will begin on Friday in this city. The consultations at the White House about an eventual response to the requests and gestures for Barack Obama to give a few minutes for an audiences with the Argentine president have been met with official silence at the headquarters of the American government, the only voz within the local structure authorized to confirm Obama's meetings.

Sources at the State Department told LA NACION that the bilateral meeting "would be good" but that the main obstacle is the U.S. president's agenda. "There isn't always time," it was said.

Cristina Kirchner will start her activities on Friday with a luncheon with business leaders. But Obama will not be there all day: he will be in Prague, where he will meet with Russian President Dimitri Medvedev. (Cristina) has planned to spend the weekend here and stay, at least, until Tuesday.

From there, the presence of Chinese President Hu Jintao will hold the attention of the White House and the local political media.

Along with Cristina and the other 30 heads of state, Hu Jintao will arrive to participate in the Global Summit on Nuclear Security, which Obama himself pushed for.

The international meeting connects with the position of Washington of censuring the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran. On this last point, the Argentine position to back sanctions on the Islamic country is highly valued in this city.

In the Argentine political media, there has been conjecture around the possibility that this agreement in positions would be a step towards having a chance for a meeting between both presidents, helped along by the recent and surprising stopover in Buenos Aires by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

But, according to what was told to LA NACION, little "of the basics" seem to have changed after that meeting. "Hopefully President Obama is making time and could speak with Cristina. That would be good. At this level of party there isn't any reason for a lack of dialogue," said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter American Dialogue, a think tank dedicated to the study of regional problems.

The director of the Center for Hemispheric Policies at the University of Miami, Susan Kaufman Percell, was much more cautious: "In these cases, the president's agenda is the determining factor, but beyond that, I ignore that Obama thinks of Argentina at this time, or what his people say about the country, if there is anything about it."

She recalled, also, that "Secretary Clinton just met with the President, which means it doesn't seem very necessary nor very urgent for a new face-to-face" between both governments. Days go, Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel openly asked that President Obama "set aside a few minutes" to receive Cristina Kirchner during the summit. Engel is the chairman of the subcommittee that follows Latin America within the House Foreign Relations Committee. And has been very active in the Middle Eastern conflict, a point that strengthened his sympathy for Cristina Kirchner.

"Engel sees Latin American policy through the lens of the conflict in the Middle East and not from the Latin American perspective or the region's relations with Washington," said Mark Weisbrot, of the Center for Economic and Political Research, when LA NACION asked him about the legislator's request.

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