Washington, December 29 (EFE) .- The US president, Barack Obama, will receive his Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos, on the 4th of February at the White House to celebrate 15 years of bilateral agreement for peace and strengthening the state known as "Plan Colombia," officials said in Washington.
"The leaders will hold a bilateral meeting and remember the 15 years of bipartisan cooperation through the Plan Colombia, a joint effort to create a more secure and prosperous future for Colombians," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement .
The visit of Santos to the White House will be an opportunity to "celebrate the successful cooperation between the US and Colombia" and support the efforts of the Colombian president to achieve a "just and durable peace agreement" with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ( FARC), added the spokesman.
In addition, Obama plans to speak with Santos on "a shared vision for future cooperation in the case of an historic peace agreement," the spokesman for the White House.
The agenda of Santos in the United States include a meeting with the Secretary of State, John Kerry, as well as congressmen, businessmen and representatives of various centers of thought in Washington, explained in a statement the embassy of Colombia in the United States.
The diplomatic legation also said that the two presidents predict talk about security alliances and Santos Obama will update the progress in the negotiations that the Colombian government maintains three years ago in Havana with the FARC to end the armed conflict oldest in the continent.
Still, the fifteenth anniversary of Plan Colombia is destined to occupy a central place in the bilateral meeting.
This program was approved in 2000 by the US government presidents, Bill Clinton, and Colombia, Andrés Pastrana.
The successors of both continued the plan, through which the US gave Colombia between $ 600 million and $ 700 million a year between 2003 and 2007, according to the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a center of studies rooted in the US
"In 2000, Colombia was a country on the brink," said Juan Carlos Pinzón, Colombian ambassador to the United States and former Minister of Defense of Colombia.
It was then that the US gave Colombia a "sustained and decisive support" that joined the efforts of the Colombian people and their armed forces to "transform the country and open a door for peace," said Pinzon in a statement.
Last September 23 in Havana, the Colombian president and the main chief of the FARC, Rodrigo Londoño, known as "Tymoshenko", staged a historic handshake and fixed the day March 23, 2016 as the final date for signature peace.
The United States this year reinforced their support to the talks between the Colombian government and the FARC in March with the appointment of Bernie Aronson as special envoy for the peace process.
Aronson does not sit at the table of talks in the Cuban capital, as the United States are not part of the process, but keeps meetings with both parties in support of the agenda of the Colombian government. EFE
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