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| Sunday, 8 February 2004 |
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US would respect communist as Salvador president SAN SALVADOR, Feb 6 (Reuters) The United States would have reservations about a communist leader backed by ex-rebels winning next month's presidential election in El Salvador but would accept that outcome, a senior U.S. official said on Friday. The United States has good relations with the outgoing administration of President Francisco Flores of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance, or Arena, said Roger Noriega, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. "We want to deepen our relations with the Salvadoran government and we hope the Salvadoran people will choose someone who shares this vision, who shares our values and interest in deepening and improving relations," he told a news conference during a two-day visit to the Central American nation. The latest polls show veteran communist leader Schafik Handal of the leftist Farabundo Marti Front, or FMLN, gaining on Arena candidate Elias Antonio Saca, a broadcasting executive. A candidate must win a majority in the March 21 vote to avoid a runoff. Arena has ruled El Salvador for 15 years, including during part of a 1980-1992 civil war when it faced the FMLN on the battlefield. The United States supported the government during the war despite evidence of human rights abuses by the military and right-wing death squads in a conflict that claimed some 75,000 lives. Noriega met with Saca and other candidates during the visit, but not with Handal. Noriega said he decided not to meet with the FMLN candidate after the party used an earlier meeting with the U.S. ambassador in its advertising. On Thursday, Noriega thanked the families of hundreds of Salvadoran soldiers sent to Iraq to support U.S. troops there, calling El Salvador one of the United States' best allies. He is set to return to Washington on Saturday. |
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