Regional meeting for Jamaica on November 3

CMC: The first meeting of the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI) Commission will take place in Jamaica from November 3.

The two-day meeting will bring together officials from all Caribbean Community (CARICOM) states, the United States, the Dominican Republic, the CARICOM Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS), and the Regional Security System.

The commission was established following the inaugural Caribbean‹ United States Security Cooperation Dialogue held in Washington DC on in May last year and a statement from the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat said that "this first meeting is intended to move the process into the coordination and implementation phase."

United States President Barack Obama announced his intent to pursue a security partnership with the Caribbean at the Fifth Summit of the Americas, which was held in Trinidad and Tobago, in April 2009. Since then, the governments of the Caribbean and the US have met four times to jointly define and develop the goals and scope for the CBSI.