MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro will attend next Sunday’s meeting in southern Mexico where regional leaders will discuss rising U.S.-bound migration in Latin America, Mexico’s foreign ministry announced in a statement on Monday.
The participation of Maduro at the Oct. 22 summit could be crucial since large numbers of Venezuelan migrants have for years been leaving their home country to cross through Central American and Mexico and attempt to enter the United States.
Over the past decade, Maduro has presided over a mass exodus of more than seven million Venezuelans amid a prolonged economic meltdown in the South American nation.
Mexico’s Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena met with Maduro in the Venezuelan capital where they discussed the importance of maintaining dialogue to solve the challenges around human mobility and address its root causes, according to the statement.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro is also set to attend the meeting in Mexico’s southern Chiapas state, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said last week.
Prior to the summit, leaders across the region are drafting a plan to curb rising migration in the region that should later be approved by all participants, Lopez Obrador said.
(Reporting by Raul Cortes Fernandez; Editing by David Alire Garcia)
