MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Montevideo Mayor Cosse holds talks with General Richardson

Cosse held with Richardson a meeting of “an official nature”

Montevideo Mayor Carolina Cosse met Wednesday with US Southern Command Chief General Laura Richardson. Cosse, who is running in the opposition Frente Amplio (Broad Front - FA) primaries for the upcoming presidential elections, said her encounter with the visiting military officer was “of an official nature.”

Cosse's main rival and the frontrunner in the FA contest Yamandú Orsi, mayor (governor) of the department (province) of Canelones, declined the invitation to talk with Richardson saying that “I don't consider it pertinent.”

Defense Minister Javier García criticized Cosse for meeting with Richardson after the FA-linked labor grouping Pit-Cnt's remarks against the four-star General's visit to the South American country. “General Richardson visits our country as an ambassador of a government that puts the world on the brink of a nuclear war by irresponsibly promoting the Ukraine-Russia war, that bombs countries like Yemen, and Syria, and supports with weapons, ammunition, and logistics the genocide carried out by the government of Israel on the Palestinian people,” the union said in a statement earlier this week while underlining Richardson's real target was “the interest in freshwater since Uruguay shares the Guarani Aquifer, and the possibility of creating a military base in Uruguayan territory,” which the US General denied Tuesday after meeting with García.

Cosse explained that her conversation with Richardson focused on a program in which the municipality and several US universities were participating. “As is customary, we received all the delegations represented, certified in Uruguay. They asked us for the meeting and we gave it and we were talking about a program in which Montevideo participates together with Bloomberg and Harvard University and also Johns Hopkins University,” Cosse said.

“All social organizations, the Pit-Cnt included, have every right to express their opinion and the controversy seems to me healthy for Uruguay to the extent that issues that have to do with sovereignty are deepened. The Pit-Cnt is the Pit-Cnt, today I fulfilled an official mission from which I will not depart,” she added.