The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Staff Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

BI-LATERAL talks between the government and Haiti on migration issues will start next week, Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell confirmed yesterday.

At the close of CARICOM’s 25th Inter-Sessional meeting, Mr Mitchell said the Bahamas government recommended the regional body observe ongoing negotiations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic over the ruling of the Dominican Republic Constitutional Court on nationality.

Mr Mitchell said: “The Bahamas took the position that CARICOM must engage as an observer to the process of mediation between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which was initiated by the President of Venezuela.

“The Bahamas raised its own migration issues and we are set to meet in a bilateral meeting on these migration issues next Thursday in Port-au-Prince.”

Prime Minister Perry Christie, and a ministerial delegation, returned from the 25th Inter-Sessional meeting of the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in Buccament, St Vincent and the Grenadines, today.

Talks between Haitian president Michel Martelly and Dominican president Danilo Medina over border security, migration and the contentious Dominican Republic Constitutional Court ruling began earlier this year.

The ruling, TC 168-13, the ruling has retroactively stripped citizenship from the children of undocumented migrants born in the Dominican Republic - many of whom are of Haitian descent - as far back as 1929.

The third round of talks is slated for March 20.