Obama, Chavez: 'One-on-one,' no plans

by Mark Silva

As the president moves today to the Summit of the Americas in Port-of-Spain, he will be meeting with the leaders of 33 other hemispheric nations, all but Cuba's.

He does not have any plans for a one-on-one meeting with one of the region's harshest critics of the United States, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, however.

"There's no one-on-one meeting with Mr. Chavez on the schedule,'' said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary. "I believe he is among several leaders that are in a multilateral meeting. We will get you a list tonight of what meetings we're doing. There are a couple of bilateral meetings, but most of them are multilateral meetings.''

Which doesn't mean that Obama will avoid him if Chavez presses the question - what if Chavez pulled him aside to say, hey, let's have a conversation.

"Every time I pull the president aside to have a conversation we've had that conversation,'' Gibbs said, "so I assume he would do the same.''

However, Gibbs is not the one who has railed against the United States, publicly denouncing the former president as the devil and aligning with all of the interests - from Cuba to Iran and the Sudan - which have caused the U.S. some of the greatest concern.

At the Summit of the Americas, all have come to agree on a common statement, the White House says, though it will not actually be signed - at least two nations, Bolivia and Nicaragua wouldn't sign on because it did not address the lifting of the Cuban trade embargo, Cuba being the one nation that is not represented in these talks..

"The declaration of the summit is a document, a fairly lengthy document that's been negotiated for the last nine months by all 34 countries, including Venezuela,'' said Jeffrey Davidow, summit director.

"It's been a laborious process of negotiation. Many of Venezuela's points were accepted, as were the points of the United States and other countries,''' he said. "This decision to -- as announced -- to not sign the document is something that just came up in the last day or so, and is inconsistent with the negotiations that have been going on for almost a year.... ''

It's not the differences that Obama wants to talk about.

"The preident has made very clear... that he is going to Trinidad and Tobago to engage in a conversation with folks to... pragmatically deal with the issues that are facing the people of the Americas today, to... leave behind the ideological arguments of the past, leave them in the past and focus instead on how do we work together in partnership with countries throughout the hemisphere to advance on dealing with the economic crisis, on energy and climate future, on citizen safety, on the issues that day in, day out, on any street corner anywhere in Latin America and the Caribbean, if you ask folks what they're most concerned about, it's those issues,'' Davidow said. "Those are the issues that President Obama hopes to engage with, with his colleagues from throughout the hemisphere over the course of the two days of the Summit of the Americas.''

The 60-page statement of the summit will make no mention of the policies of any specific country, Davidow says.

"It's not a list of the pros and cons about what the United States does or what Venezuela does or what any of the countries do.''