United Nations, Jan 2 (EFE).- Panama evoked this Thursday the sovereignty of the Canal by assuming today its new two-year mandate as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, in a ceremony that took place at the entrance of the organization. in New York.
Panama’s ambassador to the UN, Eloy Alfaro de Alba, did not mention the US president-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened Panama with regaining control of the canal, which it ceded to the Central American country in 1979, if it does not lower the tariffs that the Ships pay to use the canal, a vital avenue for American and world trade.
But Alfaro dedicated six minutes of his speech to evoking the importance of the canal for his country, an infrastructure that “for 25 years has been managed without any interference from another country or world power.”
“We are aware – he added – that we will be judged severely if we do not stand on the right side of History, defending the objectives and principles of the United Nations charter.”
However, and later asked by EFE, Alfaro said that Panama does not plan to take the Canal controversy to the Security Council at the moment.
“It is premature to consider that possibility. Other things would still have to happen to justify bringing this issue to the Council,” he clarified, but at the same time he acknowledged that Trump’s claim has “a capacity for controversy and conflict” that his country cannot. ignore.
Not to have evoked the issue of the Canal this Thursday at the door “would have been cowardly and hypocritical to avoid any reference to an issue that everyone has in mind now.”
Panama -as Latin American representative-, Greece, Denmark, Pakistan and Somalia begin today a two-year term as non-permanent members of the Council, replacing Ecuador, Mozambique, Malta, Japan and Switzerland.
The new five members starred this Thursday in the ceremony of placing their flags at the entrance of the Security Council. EFE
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