Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Beth M. McCormick will lead the U.S. delegation at the U.S.-Peru Political-Military Dialogue in Washington, D.C., March 18-19, 2013. Joining the U.S. delegation will be Ambassador Carmen Martinez from the U.S. Southern Command; Major General Randy Kee from the Joint Staff; Deputy Assistant Secretary Eliot Kang from the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation; and Deputy Assistant Secretary Greg Delawie from the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, as well as other representatives from the Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs and the U.S. Department of Defense.

These officials will hold talks with the Director General of the Americas from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Claudio de la Puente; Peruvian Ambassador to the United States, Harold Forsyth; Director General for International Affairs from the Ministry of Defense, Ambassador Mario Lopez; Chief of the Operation Division from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Rear Admiral Luis Ramos, and other representatives from the Peruvian government. These talks will build on the success of the previous dialogue, held in 2011 in Lima, Peru. This Political-Military Dialogue is also the first session to implement the U.S.-Peru non-binding Political-Military Memorandum of Understanding, signed in 2012 by Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Ambassador Harold Forsyth.

The U.S.-Peru Political-Military Dialogue focuses on a wide range of security and defense issues, including shared strategic challenges in the region and continuing efforts to enhance partnerships in security cooperation, peacekeeping, civil-defense cooperation, nonproliferation, and disarmament, and nuclear security.