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local Monday 23 January 2023

Meetings on reopening of border with Venezuela continue

ORANJESTAD – A while ago,
a multidisciplinary team Between May and June of
was installed and is pre- that year, the border was
paring all preliminary work, reopened in good agree-
like documents and strate- ment between Aruba and
gic plans, for the moment Venezuela, but then, in
in which negotiations will January 2019 once again
begin for the reopening of president Maduro closed
the border with Venezuela. the border with the ABC
islands – Aruba, Curaçao
Additionally, meetings and Bonaire – because Cu-
were held also with the De- raçao was acting as a hu-
partment of Shipping and manitarian hub for help for
Department of Aviation, Venezuela, and he consid-
where the harbormaster ered this a reason to close
gave a wide explanation to be operational before decision has already been Curaçao, accusing Aruba the border with the Dutch
on how the work needs to the gradual reopening of made that by the end of of stealing copper from islands.
be prepared before the re- the border can start. On the month the group will Venezuela. At that time,
opening of the border. the other hand, the other begin with these meetings the border was closed for In May 2019 the decision
group will focus on the legal with their counterparts from approximately five months, was made to reopen the
Minister of Justice and So- aspect, namely the man- Venezuela as well, thus ini- until the governments of border with Aruba, not with
cial Affairs, Mr. Rocco Tjon agement of visum and how tiating the technical con- Aruba and of Venezuela Curaçao or Bonaire as the
indicated that during this this entire aspect needs to sultation in order to see a reached concrete agree- prime minister pointed out,
meeting concrete agree- be put together before the realistic timeline in which all ments under which condi- but Aruba was not ready to
ments were made. He said negotiations can begin. points can be operational tions the border could be accept this as there were
this week two pieces of ad- before the gradual re- reopened. “Aruba doesn’t no agreements nor condi-
vice will be received from As was mentioned above, opening of the border with steal copper from anyone, tions under which to agree
the other two groups deal- this week both pieces of Venezuela can begin. and we do not accept that to open the border.
ing with this subject. The advice will be received Aruba will get a bad repu-
first group will focus solely and presented to the In 2018, Venezuelan presi- tation because of this”, Foreign Relations for Aruba
on the operational part. Council of Ministers in order dent Mr. Nicolas Maduro Prime Minister of Aruba, Ev- are a matter of the King-
There are different models to make a decision for the closed the border between elyn Wever-Croes said at dom of the Netherlands
that they use that will need negotiations to start. The his country and Aruba and the time. handled from The Hague.q