President of Colombia to meet with NATO Secretary General
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will today meet with Colombian President Ivan Duque Marquez at NATO Headquarters in Brussels.
Colombia is notably the bloc’s first and only Latin American partner. In May 2019, envoys from Bogota and Brussels signed a second Individual Partnership and Cooperation Program outlining areas of future bilateral cooperation between the two. Since this agreement NATO and Colombia have indeed partnered more; Colombia’s armed forces, for example, provide demining training for NATO member states’ militaries.
As NATO continues to focus its short-term attention on how it will respond to a probable Russian invasion of Ukraine, in the medium to long-term it will seek to expand its cooperative network to Latin America.
Most Latin American states see NATO’s Eurocentric focus as beyond the scope of their regional security interests. Still, expect NATO to use successful bilateral cooperation between Colombia and NATO as an example of the alliance’s utility to Central and South America. Specifically, expect the bloc to attempt to persuade Latin American states that NATO training and resources can address issues of particular regional concern such as narcoterrorism, cyber security, and rule of law on the high seas.
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