John Kerry makes first Latin America trip in office

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http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/john-kerry-first-latin-america-trip-92180.html


By ASSOCIATED PRESS | 6/4/13 7:06 AM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry is heading to Latin America for the first time since taking office, leading the U.S. delegation to a 35-nation organization he once disparaged as ineffective and nearly irrelevant.

Kerry departs Tuesday for Guatemala, where he will attend the Organization of American States' annual general assembly. Counternarcotics and counterterrorism strategy, as well as human rights throughout the Western Hemisphere, are expected to be main topics of discussion.

The OAS often is criticized in the United States, and Kerry wrote a scathing editorial about its failures and need to reform three years ago while he was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The State Department said Monday that Kerry believes the bloc is an organization of critical importance to the Americas and that his participation in the two-day meeting in Guatemala is aimed at helping to strengthen it.

"The fact that he is going to the OAS and he is spending two days there participating sends a clear signal that he thinks this remains the premier multilateral organization in the hemisphere," department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.



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