Biden meets with Ecuadorian counterpart at White House

By Rabia İclal Turan

WASHINGTON (AA) - US President Joe Biden met Monday with Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso at the White House, where the two leaders discussed migration and organized crime.

"Today we're going to keep building on the progress we've made. Together, we've made historic strides,” Biden told reporters ahead of the bilateral meeting in the Oval Office.

“This afternoon, we will discuss our economic security and our economic partnership even further than it is now,” he added.

Lasso said the meeting was “a great opportunity to affirm those democratic values of liberty and respect for human rights that we share with the glorious people of the United States.”

Noting that Ecuador was the first Latin American country to condemn Russia’s attack on Ukraine, he said: ”We believe in multilateralism. We believe in the international rule of law. We believe that dialogue is the best formula to resolve differences.”

After the meeting, which lasted an hour, Lassa told reporters that they discussed “migration and the violence related to transnational crime in Ecuador.”