Belize 2014

Yearbook 2014

Belize. In January, Foreign Minister Wilfred Elrington and Guatemalan Foreign Minister Fernando Carrera, with the help of José Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the United States Cooperation Organization OAS, signed an agreement on strengthening bilateral relations between the countries. The main intention was to prepare the way for a final agreement in the two countries’ more than 70 years of border conflict. Belize population in 2020 is estimated at 397,639. A referendum on the matter had been scheduled for October and has been planned for several years, but has not been canceled, largely because of Guatemalan obscurity about the timing of such a move.

At the same time as the border issue remained unresolved, the two countries still agreed on joint measures against illegal logging. The countries have long accused each other of turning a blind eye to the activities of their own citizens in neighboring countries. The agreement was interpreted as another important step on the road to normalized relations.

According to topb2bwebsites, a diplomatic conflict also threatened Panama after a Panamanian diplomat was murdered in November in Belize’s capital Belmopan’s outskirts. A delegation from Panama arrived to take part in the investigation of the murder, which however did not indicate any political link.