Americas

Americas

Chavez not to attend Americas summit: Venezuelan FM

14 April 2012 21:59 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is battling cancer, will not attend the Sixth Summit of the Americas as advised by his doctors, the country’s foreign minister announced here on Saturday, shortly before the summit’s opening, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"We have told organizers that Chavez will not attend because of medical recommendations," said Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro.

"He has decided to speak via telephone from Venezuela," the minister told media in Cartagena.

A day earlier, the president called for the summit to be cancelled, saying the gathering of regional leaders shuns fundamental issues like Argentina’s claim of sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands (Falkland Islands in Britain) and Cuba’s exclusion from the hemispheric event.

The leftist leader also announced that he would travel to Cuba again on Saturday to continue his treatment of cancer, diagnosed in June last year.

He returned from Cuba last Wednesday after undergoing a third session of radiation therapy, where he had undergone three surgeries in treatment of his undisclosed form of abdominal cancer.

Having ruled Venezuela for the past 13 years, Chavez has vowed to overcome cancer and win the re-election in October for a third term.

The 57-year-old president is a frequent critic of Washington, but at the last summit in April 2009 he told Obama in English, "I want to be your friend," and gave him a book as gift.

Cuban leader Raul Castro, as he is not invited due to the opposition from the United States, and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, who chose not to attend to show his displeasure at Cuba’s exclusion, will be absent from the summit as well.