Uruguay will seek greater coordination of Mercosur intelligence agencies

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Minister of Interior of Uruguay, Luis Alberto Heber, said this Thursday in Asunción that his country will seek to strengthen the coordination between the intelligence agencies of Mercosur, a block that Montevideo will preside in this second semester.

He made the announcement during a press conference with his Paraguayan counterpart, Federico González, with whom he met during his few-hour visit to the Paraguayan capital.

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“We want to have, and I have communicated to the Minister of the Interior of Paraguay, mayor coordination of the intelligences in this pro tempore presidency that Uruguay will have for the next six months,” declared Heber to the journalists.

For the minister, “the example of the airplane is more than enough” to boost cooperation between countries.

In addition, he thanked Paraguay for the information that led his country not to authorize the arrival of a Venezuelan-Iranian plane investigated in Argentina for alleged international terrorism..

“If we hadn’t been warned by a good intelligence, it would have been impossible for us to detain an aircraft that we still do not know fully and concretely what scope and what development and what linkages in the world existed,” he added.

The official, who named the meeting with González “very fruitful,” stated that the cross-border support is a “very important” topic for his country, and pointed out that this has been precisely the issue at the conclusion of the pro tempore Presidency of Paraguay.

In his turn, González defended that Uruguay and Paraguay, on two occasions, denied the entry of this airplane into their territory.

The cargo airplane had landed between the 13th and the 16th of May in Paraguay to transport a load of cigarettes to Aruba.

The minister indicated that the boarding of the airplane was allowed last May without receiving “any confirmation as to the doubts that may have arisen”, and acknowledged as a “fault” that the National Intelligence Secretariat had not been alerted.

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