Thursday in Washington DC, the Prime Minister of Haiti Evans Paul and US Secretary of State John Kerry, gave a joint press conference before a meeting behind closed doors.

"Good afternoon, everybody. My great pleasure to welcome the Prime Minister of Haiti Evans Paul, and I look forward to a conversation with him about the days ahead, which are very critical for Haiti [...] it is imperative for the elections that will take place in October to be successful to be able to restore the ability, to be able to continue the momentum, because we have major issues to continue to work on together.

So I look forward to talking to the prime minister and laying out our cooperative agenda over the course of the next months, and then, of course, well beyond that. We have economic development, health development, education, and major challenges which we need to address. So Mr. Prime Minister, (in French), and I look forward to our conversation," declared John Kerry.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. I am delighted to be hosted by the Secretary of State, Mr. Kerry. I have come as prime minister of Haiti as part of the friendly, cordial, historical relations that have always existed between our two countries, the U.S. and Haiti.

I am prime minister in the context where my main task is to create favorable conditions to organize inclusive, critical elections. We had a first round of elections on August 9th, which took place with some problems. We’re aware of those problems, and we are committed to commit to correct these problems in October during the second round, as well as the first round of the presidential election.

What’s most important for us in the government is, first of all, to tell you thank you, the United States, because you have always contributed. You have contributed to allow us to have the economic assets to organize these elections. But we ask you to continue to support us in terms of outreach, awareness of the national – international audience.

We have only one goal, only one option – namely, to organize elections to ensure that Haiti can continue on the path of democratic change. What we want and we have decided is that next year, 2016, in January we’ll have a democratically elected parliament, and on February 7, we will have a newly democratically elected president. That’s what we want and that’s what we hope our partners, such as the United States, will be there to support us in order to allow Haiti to create the enabling conditions for the development of its people," declared Prime minister Paul.

S/ HaitiLibre