Poor likely to flock to see Pope in Ecuador
QUITO, Ecuador – History’s first Latin American pope returned to Spanish-speaking South America for the first time on Sunday, bringing a message of solidarity with the region’s poor, who are expected to turn out in droves to welcome their native son home.
“The pope of the poor” chose to visit Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay specifically because they are among the poorest and most marginal nations of a region that claims 40 percent of the world’s Catholics. He’s skipping his homeland of Argentina, at least partly to avoid papal entanglement in this year’s presidential election.
Francis’ plane landed in Quito, Ecuador, where thousands of people lined the motorcade route that the pope will take to the Vatican ambassador’s residence where he’ll stay for the first leg of the trip that ends July 13.
Pilgrims came from far and wide. A small group of Colombians had already set up tents at the former site of Quito’s airport, where the pope will say Mass on Tuesday.
Kerry: Iran nuke talks could go either way
VIENNA – Nine days into marathon nuclear talks, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday said the diplomatic efforts “could go either way,” cutting off all potential pathways for an Iranian atomic bomb or ending without an agreement that American officials have sometimes described as the only alternative to war.
The EU’s top foreign policy official, Federica Mogherini, said agreement was “very close.” But Kerry said there was still a ways to go.
“We are not yet where we need to be on several of the most critical issues,” Kerry told reporters outside the 19th-century Viennese palace that has hosted the negotiations.
World powers and Iran are hoping to clinch a deal by Tuesday, setting a decade of restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program and granting Iran significant relief from international sanctions. Kerry met for 3½ hours on Sunday with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, as top diplomats from the five other negotiating countries planned to return to Austria’s capital later in the evening.
Associated Press
