The meeting began on Tuesday and is chaired by Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo and the Undersecretary of State for Administration and Resources of the United States, Richard Verma.

The meeting is attended by 130 US functionaries and a similar number of Colombian government authorities, who discussed Rural Transformation; Environment and climate change; Energy, mining and infrastructure, and Peace, democracy, and human rights.

Other topics addressed during the opening day also dealt with the fight against drug trafficking, citizen security, and migration, about which Murillo informed the press that Colombia would open five new consulates in the United States in the cities of Seattle, Charlotte, Denver, Dallas, and Phoenix.

He added that 500 Colombian families benefited from the reunification program with the United States, and about 58,000 should take advantage of it. The Colombian public servant revealed, that for the first time, there is authorization for nearly twenty thousand Colombians to apply for non-agricultural work visas, and the possibility of granting approximately one thousand visas for young people to work during the summer in different cities in the United States.

Murillo also informed of a new strategy implementation approved between the two countries, called Vida Colombia, which he described as historic, and which “marks a new approach of the relationship, (…) reflects the spirit of what has been worked on in recent years, and the challenges of the 21st century in a diversified agenda.”

With this same spirit, Richard Verma said that work will be done during the dialogues taking concrete steps to strengthen cooperation and deliver tangible results.

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