RIO NEGRO, Colombia (AFP) - The host president of the 14th summit of the Andean Community of Nations, Alvaro Uribe, urged member countries to strive to make headway during a two-day meeting on forging closer economic ties with the Mercosur economic bloc.
"We have to define how we are going to move forward on Mercosur in political, social and economic matters," the Colombian president told his colleagues Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada of Bolivia, Lucio Gutierrez of Ecuador and Peruvian Vice President Raul Diez Canseco.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, representing Mercosur, is being treated as a guest of honor at the summit which runs through Saturday.
Brazil is Mercosur's major member, followed by Argentina and smaller economies Uruguay and Paraguay, while Chile and Bolivia are associate members.
Lula's participation at the Andean summit underscores his interest in forming a separate bloc of Latin American countries to give some counterbalance to the United States in negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
Uribe, speaking ahead of Lula's arrival later Friday afternoon, urged his Andean Community member colleagues to "respect Andean Community norms and the political framework that is agreed" in the event of making separate bilateral trade deals with the United States ahead of a Community accord with Mercosur.
"We cannot deny that some (countries) have an interest in and a need for a bilateral accord with Mercosur," Uribe said.
The United States and Brazil are co-chairing discussions on the FTAA -- scheduled to be completed by the end of 2005 -- that seek to put in place a common market of the Americas, with some 800 million consumers.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, speaking ahead of the launch of the summit, said the summit's far reaching goal was to "merge South America, to unite South America."
"I think there's the manifest express intention (of that) but between the word and the deed there is a long stretch we still have to travel," he told reporters as he arrived at Rionegro's airport, some 400 kilometers (240 miles) northwest of Bogota.
In an unusual development ahead of the summit's launch, Uribe took the wheel to drive Chavez, sitting by him in the front seat, Bolivia's Sanchez de Lozada, Ecuador's Gutierrez and the Peruvian vice president, the 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Rionegro to the summit's venue at the Quirama estate.
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