Opening Remarks at the U.S.-Colombia High-Level Partnership Dialogue
Remarks
Deputy Secretary of State
(In Spanish) Thank you. Good Day. A cordial greeting to all of you. It is an honor to be with you. Please permit me to continue in English (Laughter).
Thank you very much, Minister Holguin. I am honored to join you today for the fifth meeting of the U.S.-Colombia High-Level Partnership Dialogue. And I am very pleased to be joined by my colleagues, including Ambassador Kevin Whitaker, the Deputy National Security Advisor Avril Haines, and USAID Associate Administrator Mark Feierstein.
Five years ago, our Presidents met in New York and launched this dialogue as a forum for two partners to expand cooperation on a range of shared interests and common priorities—from promoting clean energy to spurring inclusive growth to protecting human rights to strengthening the ties between our students and our citizens.
And in the years since, this dialogue has helped facilitate Colombia’s remarkable transformation as a legacy of conflict has receded and a new era of prosperity taken root. This success story—your success story—is thanks to the courage and resilience of the Colombian people, who are translating steady economic and security gains into a strong foundation for shared prosperity and durable peace.
This peace is not merely the absence of war, the end of conflict.
For war-weary Colombians, it means so much more.
It can mean the security of owning the land they tend and all the fruits of their harvests.
It can mean the comfort of knowing their children will carry books instead of grenades, diplomas instead of guns.
It means the confidence of companies to invest and create jobs in regions that were long shunned by growth and opportunity.
And it means a burst of sustainable development in the infrastructure of peace—the schools, the health centers, roads that keep even remote communities healthy and strong.
Already, across Colombia, we see this future take shape, as poverty falls, trade grows, the middle class expands.
Local leaders are standing up to corruption, human rights violations, and environmental degradation.
Conflict victims in more than 25 municipalities are receiving the support they need to rebuild their lives and reclaim their livelihoods.
More than 1,900 new Colombian companies are exporting to the United States for the first time thanks to the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement.
And talented students in disadvantaged communities are developing the language and the technical skills they need to become leaders of their generation.
As Colombia’s future grows brighter, so do our opportunities for collaboration.
The United States is proud to partner with Colombia as you build a more prosperous, more secure, and more just nation. Today, Colombia’s strong leadership in security affairs serves as a model for the entire region, and we welcome your pledge to participate in UN peacekeeping, as well as your outstanding work to train thousands of military and police officials from Central America and the Caribbean.
I know that we can expect a series of rich discussions today, as you said madam Minister, that not only build ties between our nations, but demonstrate concrete results.
We look forward to deepening and expanding our support for Colombia’s tireless efforts to achieve peace and reconciliation. One of the fruits already of that effort is an agreement on demining, and today, I am pleased to announce that we plan to provide an additional $5 million over the next two years for civilian and military humanitarian demining activities. Since 2006, we have provided more than $21 million to clear mines so that farmers can plant, people can drive, and children can run outside without fear of losing their limbs or their lives. And we’ve also worked closely with local military and civilian organizations to train communities on the risks that mines pose.
More broadly, we look forward to helping accelerate Columbia’s tremendous record of growth and development. Over the next five years, USAID plans to provide $638 million to bolster regional governance, improve land tenure and rural development, strengthen civil society, facilitate post conflict integration.
And in addition, we are also renewing our support for the OAS Mission to Support the Peace Process, a tremendous effort over the last decade to foster democracy and rebuild trust in war-torn communities.
We look forward to developing renewable energy to help power Colombia’s rise even as we preserve its richly diverse and fragile ecosystem. We are pleased that Colombia will partner with the U.S. Department of Energy to host the first Solar Decathlon in Latin America and Caribbean to get students engaged in solving one of the great challenges of our time.
And we look forward to helping unlock the potential of our young people, especially women and girls. Through President Obama’s 100,000 Strong in the Americans initiative, we are developing ties and deepening the ties that bind our nations together, as our students increasingly study in each other’s classes and our scholars build global research networks.
We have a long day ahead, and I want to thank you in advance for your commitment to this dialogue and your efforts to deepen relations between our two nations.
What we are seeing is quite extraordinary. We’ve moved to a true partnership between the United States and Colombia. We used to ask “what can the United States do for Colombia?” Now it is “what can we do with Colombia?” And that is a tremendous opportunity for the United States and we believe for Colombia as well.
Thank you very much.
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Source: Dept. Of State – Releases
Collected Department Releases: Opening Remarks at the U.S.-Colombia High-Level Partnership Dialogue
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