 CARTAGENA, Colombia – Spain’s King Felipe VI met with the presidents of the Dominican Republic and five Central American nations during a working breakfast at the Ibero-American Summit, a two-day event that began on Saturday. Prior to the breakfast, the Spanish head of state held a bilateral meeting with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales. The vice presidents of Costa Rica and Nicaragua and El Salvador’s foreign minister also attended the breakfast, which took place at the Santa Clara hotel in the Caribbean city before the start of the summit’s plenary session. Spain’s acting economy minister, Luis de Guindos, and secretary of state for international cooperation and for Ibero-America, Jesus Gracia, accompanied Felipe. The king customarily meets with Central American leaders at a working breakfast during each Ibero-American Summit. Tight security was in place on the first day of the summit in Cartagena, where Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrilla group, Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, a.k.a. “Timochenko,” on Sept. 26 signed an accord to end 52 years of civil war in the Andean nation. That agreement, however, is currently being reworked after Colombian voters narrowly rejected it in an Oct. 2 national plebiscite. |