Last Updated on August 15, 2023
Peru and the United States confirmed they had reached an air security agreement this weekend which they claim will help stop airplanes engaged in narco-trafficking from entering the South American country’s airspace.
The deal was announced by Prime Minister of Peru’s Council of Ministers, Alberto Otárola, El Comercio reported.
“We have reached an agreement with the United States regarding aerial interception,” he said in a statement. “There was a kind of blockade 20 years ago due to a regrettable accident involving an aircraft that led the United States to suspend or freeze support to Peru in terms of aerial interception and other services. This support will be resumed.”
The agreement will allow the Peruvian Air Force to once again receive cooperation from the United States regarding radar, aircraft, budget, equipment, and training for interception activities against suspected criminal activities.
It follows prolonged negotiations between both governments, which concluded during the visit of the Minister of Defense, Jorge Chavez Cresta, to Washington D.C. last week.
A similar agreement was suspended over two decades ago after Peruvian authorities accidentally shot down a civilian aircraft carrying American missionaries.
These activities resumed in 2005. However, U.S. cooperation was interrupted again following the approval of Law No. 30339, introduced by a Peruvian congressman, which once again led to its suspension.
The latest agreement represents a “turning point” between both countries in combating drug trafficking through aircraft entering and operating illegally in Peruvian airspace, especially in the Valle de los Ríos Apurímac and Putumayo regions.
Peru has undergone significant political headwinds over the past year after communist leader Pedro Castillo was impeached and removed from office after attempting to carry out a coup d’état. He is currently serving a one-and-a-half-year prison sentence.
His replacement, Dina Boluarte, is widely regarded as preferable to Castillo given her opposition to Castillo’s far-left economic proposals.
Left-wing governments and regimes in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Honduras, and Venezuela have continued to recognize Pedro Castillo as the country’s democratically elected president and have refused to recognize Boluarte in any official capacity.
The agreement struck between the United States and Peru comes as the South American continent faces a massive surge in drug trafficking activity. Many of the cartels responsible for the drug trafficking are closely linked to left-wing South American governments.
In that vein, senior Paraguayan counter-narcotics officials, pictured, are crying out for US assistance regarding radar to stem the tide of drugs flowing through their territory.
Thus far, despite the narcos apparently having their own radar in the relatively remote north of Paraguay, no help has been forthcoming.
This is despite the gargantuan Paraguayan US Embassy’s alleged decades’ long “War on Drugs.
As National File recently reported, the son of Colombia’s communist President Gustava Petro has been arrested and is facing charges of money laundering and illicit enticement over his links to drug trafficking.
Related: Son of Colombia’s Communist President Arrested Over Links to Drug Trafficking
What’s more, is that, as National File has reported, left-wing Brazilian President Lula Da Silva has long been tied to international drug trafficking, which has long been intertwined with his left-wing, communist political movement, which is closely linked to the infamous Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.