MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday confirmed that his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro will attend a regional summit this month where participants will discuss ways to encourage people to stay in their home countries instead of joining the flood of U.S.-bound migration.
Lopez Obrador told reporters at a regular press conference he had spoken by phone with fellow leftist Petro about the Oct. 22 meeting to take place in Mexico’s southern border state of Chiapas.
“Gustavo Petro confirmed to me that he will attend, along with other presidents,” said Lopez Obrador. He did not name the others who have confirmed.
“We’re really worried,” he added. “The flow of migrants is growing and we have to find options… so that people have the possibility of staying put in their towns and don’t see the need to migrate.”
Prior to the summit, leaders across Latin America are discussing and beginning to prepare a draft plan that should later be approved by all participants, the Mexican leader added.
Lopez Obrador has previously said that presidents from Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama and Cuba have been invited to the talks.
Record numbers of migrants have been arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, straining resources and stoking tension across the region.
“We’re not just thinking about walls or militarizing the border, but rather how to care for the needs of the people,” said Lopez Obrador, who has often been criticized at home for working closely with U.S. authorities to stymie the ability of often desperate migrants to reach the U.S border.
One of the points to be discussed at the summit is the installation of migrant processing centers, which Lopez Obrador has said he wants to be set up in migrants’ countries of origin instead of Mexico.
(Reporting by Dave Graham and Valentine Hilaire; Editing by David Alire Garcia and David Gregorio)
