Rupel Meets Slovenian Community in Argentina
Foreign Minister Dimtrij Rupel continued his visit to Argentina on Friday by meeting representatives of the Slovenian community there. Rupel said he thanked his Argentinian hosts for everything Argentina offered to the Slovenians who were looking for a new home.
"It is worth noting that the Argentinians I spoke with thanked Slovenia for the Slovenian community having contributed so significantly to Argentina's achievements," Rupel stressed.
"The Slovenian community in Argentina is not only a symbolical supplement of Slovenia. It is the most important element of Slovenian life in Latin American and plays an important role in helping us understand this society and the problems that are to be dealt with by Slovenia as the presiding EU country," Rupel said after the meeting in Buenos Aires.
He said the representative of the community acquainted him with their problems, "which are not major problems and can all be fixed".
Argentina is home to nearly 30,000 ethnic Slovenians and their descendants. Slovenians moved to Argentina in three major waves: economic migrants came in the 1870s and during both world wars, while those who came the immediate aftermath of the Second World War mostly fled Slovenia to escape persecution by the Communists.
The community representatives highlighted among their problems a lack of bilingual dictionaries and publications about Slovenia in Spanish. One of them expressed a wish to receive an official invitation to return to Slovenia.
The Slovenians in Argentina recently elected Andrej Fink and Tone Mizerit as their representatives in the Council for Slovenians in Neighbouring Countries and Abroad. The establishing of a federation of Slovenian associations in Argentina is planned for next year.
On Saturday, Rupel is to visit the Slovenian school in San Just in Buenos Aires and give interviews for the Slovenian media there. He is also scheduled to visit the Slovenian community in Mendoza in the west of the country.
The stop in Argentina marks the beginning of Rupel's tour of Latin America, during which he is also to visit Chile and Peru and attend a ministerial meeting of the EU and the Rio Group in the Dominican Republic.
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