Geisha Kow­lessar

This coun­try is mov­ing to es­tab­lish a diplo­mat­ic pres­ence in ad­di­tion­al lo­ca­tions world­wide, in­clud­ing in Mex­i­co, says For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an.He made the state­ment dur­ing the bud­get de­bate in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day."We have al­ready be­gun to hold dis­cus­sions for a Cari­com pres­ence in oth­er parts of the world. It's a new ini­tia­tive where we are try­ing to es­tab­lish a Cari­com pres­ence where none of us has been be­fore.

"The Unit­ed Arab Re­pub­lic, Sau­di Ara­bia and Turkey are three coun­tries that have been ear­marked based on their in­ter­ests. So there is an ex­pan­sion that is tak­ing place with re­spect to our rep­re­sen­ta­tion," Dook­er­an said.He said the Turk­ish gov­ern­ment re­cent­ly an­nounced its plan to es­tab­lish an em­bassy in T&T as part of its glob­al out­reach for the re­gion.

"These de­vel­op­ments are de­vel­op­ments that are build­ing the in­sti­tu­tions for the fu­ture based on the fact that T&T is now po­si­tioned to play a pro­nounced role in in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs," Dook­er­an added.On the UK visa, Dook­er­an said the UK Gov­ern­ment in­formed this coun­try that they had some con­cerns with the se­cu­ri­ty as­pects of the visa.

"They in­di­cat­ed that we need to cor­rect and fix it and they would work with us to do so. No de­ci­sion has been made with re­spect to the re­moval of the visa regime of the UK."But a de­ci­sion to co­op­er­ate and to re­solve that is­sue has been agreed up­on," Dook­er­an said.He said Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith led a team to Lon­don a few months ago on se­cu­ri­ty and im­mi­gra­tion mat­ters.

"The UK al­so sent a team. About a month ago we signed a se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion agree­ment with the Unit­ed King­dom, all part of our steps to en­sure that we are on the same page when it comes to the se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns–it's a glob­al con­cern," Dook­er­an added.