Minister Pusić holds talks with Colombian foreign minister

First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Vesna Pusić held talks with her Colombian counterpart Marie Angele Holguin Cuellar

First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Vesna Pusić held talks with her Colombian counterpart Marie Angele Holguin Cuellar, who was on a working visit to Croatia.

Apart from the current situation in Venezuela, the two ministers discussed bilateral relations between Croatia and Colombia, notably mine removal and the energy and shipbuilding industries. A mine removal process has been underway in Colombia since 2011 and the Croatian Mine Action Centre (HCR) and its agency for testing, development and training (HCR-CTRO), in cooperation with the Defence Ministry, have been involved in it.

Pusić and Cuellar also discussed a project of establishing an informal group of women in top political positions who through their work and projects would contribute to keeping issues concerning women in post-conflict regions, such as, for example, Afghanistan, on political agendas, so that women in those regions would not be deprived of their civil rights again. They also talked about the initiative by British Foreign Secretary William Hague to treat sexual violence in conflict as war crime. Pusić is one of the main proponents of that initiative. Cuellar agreed that it was paramount to help the victims of violence as post-conflict period could be extremely traumatic as well if the importance of offering help was not recognized.

Pusić and Cuellar first met last year on the margins of an EU-CELAC (summit in Santiago de Chile.

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