By Lindsay Mackoon, Freelance WriterPORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad:
NEGOTIATIONS FOR a fishing pact between Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados are still on track, Prime Minister Patrick Manning indicated Thursday.
Speaking to reporters following a Cabinet meeting, Manning said both countries were getting closer to an agreement.
"If the negotiations were simple and straightforward, they would have been completed long ago. The mere fact they have gone on for some 12 years suggests that they are indeed quite complex and contentious," said PM Manning.
"But we continue to go to the table with the best of intentions and with clean hands and we work assiduously toward the attainment of some kind of acceptable arrangement between the two countries in the shortest possible time."
Last week, Barbados Prime Minister Owen Arthur said his country would not be deepening political unity with Trinidad and Tobago unless the fishing pact issue was resolved.
But Manning said Arthur's statement did not represent a serious threat.
"I do not see it as a serious threat to the integration process at this stage. It is just another challenge we face in the region, and there are many challenges," he said.
At the same time, the Trinidad and Tobago leader said the integration process was given a fillip last week in St. Lucia where such matters were discussed by CARICOM leaders.
Manning has called for the closer political ties between Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St. Vincent and Barbados.
