The government on 2 May announced that high-ranking officials representing the governments of Haiti and the Dominican Republic would meet in Petion Ville area of Port-au-Prince tomorrow, Thursday 8 May to continue bilateral talks. The talks are being held in the presence of observers from the European Union and the government of Venezuela. This would have been the third round of talks aimed at resolving joint issues. The focus would have been on health, tourism, trade, and migration issues.
But this will not happen. Instead on Wednesday, 7 May, the Dominican government told journalists who were heading to cover the event that agreements for trade, health and tourism would be signed at the Ministry of Foreign Relations in Port-au-Prince. Neither Minister of the Presidency Gustavo Montalvo nor Haiti Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe will be attending, government spokesman Roberto Rodriguez Marchena told Dominican journalists who were about to board the bus to Port-au-Prince to cover the third bilateral meeting.
As is usual in Dominican Republic and Haiti talks, the most difficult issue has been immigration. The government of Haiti has been lobbying for a naturalization bill to be passed, but it has been delayed in being presented to Congress as the government says the original proposal was in conflict with Constitutional Court ruling 168-13. Since the start of the rounds, the government of Haiti has changed its minister of foreign relations.
The Dominican journalists were told that the Haitian authorities were not able to prepare the necessary logistics for the meeting that was originally scheduled to take place in Jacmel, before being changed to Petion Ville from 6-8 May as requested by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua.
www.listindiario.com/la-republica/2014/5/7/320987/Suspenden-encuentro-de-manana-entre-gobiernos-RD-y-Haiti-solo-habra-firma
http://presidencia.gob.do/comunicados/dialogo-de-alto-nivel-republica-dominicananhait%C3%AD-se-celebrara-el-jueves-8