MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico’s government said on Thursday it had invited Chilean President-elect Gabriel Boric to visit, as the two countries vowed to forge a “strategic alliance” once the new leader takes office.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard spoke in a video news conference from Chile after meeting with Boric, a leftist who last month was voted in as Chile’s youngest-ever democratically elected president.
Mexico’s foreign ministry issued a statement saying Ebrard and Boric agreed that the two countries would establish the strategic alliance once Boric assumes power in March.
The partnership will seek to work with other progressive countries in the region to promote “a common voice to face challenges in the international arena,” the ministry said.
When asked if the two had discussed lithium mining during talks in Chile, Ebrard said the topic did not come up, but was likely to do so in future as an area of common agreement.
“The business of lithium is sure to be one of the priorities on the shared agenda between Chile and Mexico,” he said.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a leftist resource nationalist, is seeking to reserve lithium extraction for the government and bar private developers from future concessions.
(Reporting by Raul Cortes; Writing by Daina Beth SolomonEditing by Dave Graham and Richard Chang)
