Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, will visit Colombia on October 20

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the head of US diplomacy accepted an invitation made to him last week in Paris by the Colombian vice president and foreign minister, Marta Lucía Ramírez.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will make his first visit to Colombia on October 20 to participate in the High Level Dialogue between the two countries, the Foreign Ministry in Bogotá reported on Friday.

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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the head of US diplomacy accepted an invitation made to him last week in Paris by the Colombian vice president and foreign minister, Marta Lucía Ramírez. Blinken and Ramírez met in the French capital as part of the ministerial meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

"Secretary Blinken and Vice President Ramírez spoke of current efforts to support the Venezuelan people who are working to restore democracy in their country," State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement about that meeting. Blinken especially thanked Ramírez for the Colombian government's efforts to deal with regional immigration.

The information added that the vice president and foreign minister also met with the United States ambassador to Colombia, Philip S. Goldberg, to coordinate Blinken's agenda in Bogotá, where she will arrive at “the end of October to participate in the High Level Dialogue between Colombia and the United States ”.

At their meeting in the Colombian capital, Ramírez and Blinken will seek to strengthen cooperation between the two countries and address various issues on the bilateral agenda. They will also discuss economic and social opportunities; education, culture and sports; environment, climate change and health; energy and infrastructure; democracy, human rights, security, fight against drugs and rural development.

The High Level Dialogue will emphasize the strengthening of cooperation efforts to "take the relationship with the US to a new level, focused much more on foreign investment in Colombia," the information added. It will also seek to strengthen trade, job creation, environmental improvement, gender equality, transparency and post-pandemic economic reactivation.

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