SVG in talks with US about third-country ‘deportees’

Prime Minister Godwin Friday says that the United States has also approached St. Vincent and the Grenadines to take third-state nationals.

He said that Kingstown has sent a response to Washington and is awaiting further information.

“… Yes, we have been approached with respect to that and a number of other countries in the OECS, I think all of them have,” he told the state-owned NBC Radio on Thursday.

“We have been presented with a memorandum of understanding for us to review. We have engaged in that process with the US authorities and have responded with a draft that we seek to negotiate,” the prime minister said.

“And this is something that other countries in the region have done, and that process is continuing.”

Friday, who is chair of the eight-member regional group the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) noted that the bloc as well as the larger grouping, CARICOM, were established to promote regional integration and cooperation.

He noted the economic and single market elements of the blocs, adding that the group have had “some difficulties over the years” coordinating foreign policy.

“… but we never stopped trying, and certainly with this issue, with respect to  this initiative for the third country deportees, this is something we have discussed with our OECS colleagues, and we essentially seek to coordinate a response with respect to that.”

The prime minister noted that while each OECS country has been approached, “the initiatives come bilaterally from the US to each individual country.

“But, as I said, CARICOM and OECS were put together for a particular purpose, and we use that in a way for us to seek to have common approaches to them.”

He noted that the OECS has free movement of people, adding, “So … any relationship that allows persons to come into one country or another essentially affects all of us.”

The prime minister said it, therefore, “makes sense for us to … take advice from one another, and to discuss these matters and to seek to coordinate our responses.

“So that is part of what we are doing. And we know that the US, in terms of their requests and so forth, they understand that that’s part of the process, and that we have to look as well for the security and ask questions about how we are going to, how would that programme would be operationalised, and some of those matters we are discussing at the moment,” Friday said.

He said the issue of third-country deportees “raises a number of concerns for us.

“We want to be helpful and be cooperative and to have good relations with all of the countries that we’ve had historically good relations with, including the United States, and where we can be of assistance, we always say that we would, and we expect reciprocity in that regard,” the prime minister said.