Nadaleen Singh

Am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed Na­tions Therese Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis is to re­turn to T&T to meet with For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an. And dis­cus­sions are ex­pect­ed to be about the con­tents of her ad­dress at the In­sti­tute for Cul­tur­al Diplo­ma­cy in Gene­va about two weeks ago. The an­nounce­ment was made yes­ter­day at the post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence which was held at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair. Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Ja­mal Mo­hammed said Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis had been "re­called to head­quar­ters" in T&T. He said there must be a process in place first be­fore she can be of­fi­cial­ly re­called from her post. He said Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis was sum­moned by For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an who has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for T&T en­voys.

Pressed fur­ther for de­tails he said: "Am­bas­sador Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis shall be re­turn­ing to T&T on Sep­tem­ber 3 for dis­cus­sions with the line min­is­ter, the Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, and at that time you will get fur­ther de­tails." But in a me­dia re­lease sent to the T&T Guardian ear­li­er yes­ter­day, the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry said: "The ho­n­ourable Win­ston Dook­er­an, Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs in­forms that the tour of du­ty of her Ex­cel­len­cy Therese Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis, Am­bas­sador/Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the per­ma­nent Mis­sion of the Re­pub­lic of T&T to the Unit­ed Na­tions, Gene­va, will come to an end in Sep­tem­ber 2012 and she has been re­called to head­quar­ters." Guardian un­der­stands that the pro­ce­dure for re­call­ing an am­bas­sador is the pre­rog­a­tive of the Prime Min­is­ter. The Prime Min­is­ter can choose to con­sult the For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter about the re­call. If the prime min­is­ter de­cides to re­call the Am­bas­sador, a let­ter is writ­ten to the am­bas­sador re­quest­ing the in­di­vid­ual to re­turn.