Chairman of the United National Congress (UNC) Jack Warner is calling for urgent talks with his Congress of the People (COP) counterpart, Joseph Toney. Warner said he wrote to the COP chairman asking for talks to resolve difference between the two major members of the People's Partnership Government, led by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. Warner, who is also the Works and Transport Minister, was quoted as saying something was fundamentally wrong with the way the COP was seeking to strengthen the People's Partnership.
Warner said the public comments from the COP were embarrassing to its political leader Winston Dookeran, the Minister of Finance. Yesterday, Warner said the comments expressed were his and if anybody did not share them he had no problem with that. "If they want to push it under the carpet, fine. If they want to push their heads in the sand like an ostrich, okay. But I said what I believe is right in my capacity as chairman of the UNC," he said. Warner said he had not raised the matter with Dookeran but wrote to Toney to meet to resolve the differences. He said he was awaiting a time and date for the meeting.
He said he canceled a trip abroad and was prepared to sit and resolve the differences. "I am now available and we can meet at anytime but we have to meet very early and that for me must be a prelude to any meeting of the partnership. "The chairman of the COP must meet the chairman of the UNC-the two major parties-and let us sit down and see what the issues are," Warner stressed. He insisted: "Nothing can be lost in dialogue. Let us sit down and see what the issues are. That is all I am asking for."
Warner said the PP could be "better off if we sit down as big people and expose what the issues are. Don't run from them." Asked if the rift was a threat to the Government, Warner said: "Nah, nah, nah. Far from it... but the fact is if we don't deal with it over time it may, and that's why I am saying so." (RL)