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Argentine foreign minister meets in Washington with Obama advisors
EFE
August 10, 2010

Argentine Foreign Minister H ctor Timerman met today with the economic advisor to President Barack Obama, Michael Froman, and with the main advisor on Latin America, Dan Restrepo, on the first day of his official visit to the United States.

Timerman, who was Argentina's ambassador to the U.S. until he took the helm of the Argentine foreign ministry on June 22nd, met first with Froman, who is the main negotiator and representative of the White House to the G-20, of which Argentina is a part.

Afterwards, according to sources in the Argentine embassy, he met with Restrepo, with whom he'd been expected to make a "general overview" of the region on "various" issues.

Neither the White House nor the embassy have given out more information about the fine details of these meetings, but the foreign minister had expected to report on Wednesday about the results of this visit.

Timerman went later on to a luncheon organized in his honor by the Democratic Representative of New York and chairman of the Western Hemisphere subcommittee of the House of Representatives, Eliot Engel.

On Wednesday, which is his second and last day of the official visit to Washington, Timerman will meet at the State Department with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, after on July 7th both had agreed in a telephone conversation to coordinate a meeting to deepen the bilateral agenda. .

The foreign minister also will meet on Wednesday with the White House coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation and Terrorism, Gary Samore.

Timerman's visit to Washington comes after the American Task Force Argentina (AFTA) sent a letter to Clinton on the 2nd in which they accuse the foreign minister of having put out disinformation about the debt.

That organization, which is co-led by Robert J. Shapiro, former assistant secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs in the government of Bill Clinton, and Nancy Soderberg, former ambassador from the U.S. to the U.N., allege that Timerman, when he was ambassador, said that U.s. creditors had bought their bonds during the dictatorships, when they were acquired in the open market during recent democratic governments.

This group asks the secretary of state to, in her meeting with the Argentine foreign minister and in public comments connected to his visit, say "clearly" that the issue of Argentina's debt "should be resolved in a just manner" and "once and for all."

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