Chile’s Pinera presents himself as post-ideological leader in first tour as president

Chile’s Pinera: no ‘nostalgia’ in first tour

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Argentina and Chile’s presidents said Thursday that ideological differences won’t keep them from working closely together.

Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez rejected the idea that her leftist politics would prevent a strong working relationship with Sebastian Pinera, a right-wing billionare whose inauguration last month ended 20 years of center-left rule in Chile.

“Some people think the fact that a government has a political side different from that of Argentina could affect relations,” Fernandez said as Pinera shared a stage inside the Casa Rosada, Argentina’s presidential palace. “It’s absurd … I give all Argentines and Chileans my guarantee that that will never happen.”

While Pinera’s political opponents feared a swing to the right in a country still recovering from its long dictatorship, he has quickly presented himself as a post-ideological leader, impatient to work with anyone who can make progress happen. His delegation includes Chile’s top communist, and in Argentina, he pointedly criticized those who seem to be obsessed with “nostalgia.”

“Countries with tired spirits only speak and remember the past and fear the future. On the other hand, countries with young spirits not only reaffirm their pasts but also have hope, and know that the best thing is to look ahead,” Pinera said. “The best of our bilateral relationship is ahead of us.”

Chile and Argentina need to deepen every aspect of their relationship, he said, forging new economic, commercial, scientific, and cultural ties.

“It seems so absurd to me that we spend thousands and thousands of millions of dollars in bridges and tunnels that bring us together, to encounter a customs process that separates us. The time we save using bridges and tunnels we lose waiting in line at the border.”

The solution is not just more money, he said, but a change in attitude among officials in both countries.

Fernandez and Pinera’s predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, signed a treaty last year consolidating the countries’ integration plans. At lunch on Thursday, both leaders signed a presidential declaration reaffirming this and other previous treaties, which among other things address the need for improved border crossings and shared public works.

Pinera, on his first foriegn tour as president, goes next to Brazil and then New Orleans, where he hopes to bring lessons learned in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina back to his quake-damaged country. Then, on Monday and Tuesday, he’ll join 47 other leaders at a White House summit on nuclear non-proliferation, where Chile will likely be praised for secretly surrendering its last weapons-grade uranium to the U.S. last month.

Pinera is expected to support Brazil’s candidacy for a permanent U.N. Security Council seat and push for the creation of a public-private investment fund for infrastructure projects in Chile and Brazil, according to Carlos Maldonados Prieta, a history professor and international advisor to the Chilean defense ministry.

Latin American leaders have talked for years about integrating energy and transportation systems. Financial, environmental and technical roadblocks have prevented most of their ideas from going anywhere.

But Pinera, as a billionaire entrepreneur with personal experience growing Chile’s LAN airlines and other major companies, may prove to be just the catalyst the region needs, said Alexandre Barros, a Brasilia-based political analyst.

“Pinera is an excellent administrator and as one the country’s leaders in the infrastructure area — aviation — his chances of success are great thanks to his experience and contacts,” Barros said.

Topping Chile and Brazil’s shared agenda is a highway that would pass through Bolivia, linking Brazil’s southern Mato Grosso do Sul state with Chile’s northern port of Iquique. If Brazil could truck its soybeans and other commodities to the Pacific Coast, it could reduce dramatically the cost of shipping its products to Asia and the U.S. West Coast by avoiding lengthy trips around the continent’s southern tip or through the Panama Canal.

Associated Press Writers Federico Quilodran in Santiago, Chile; Almudena Calatrava in Buenos Aires and Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo contributed to this story.