Above: Haiti Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Haiti Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe will lead a five-member commission for high-level talks with the Dominican Republic that begin Tuesday, the government announced.

The two countries are set to begin high-level talks in the Haitian city of Ouanaminthe. They discussions will likely focus on a controversial citizenship ruling by the Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court in September that will impact around 200,000 Dominicans of Haitian descent.

The commission will include Lamothe, Foreign Minister Pierre Richard Casimir, Commerce Minister Wilson Laleau, Interior Minister David Bazile and advisor Nesmy Manigat.

In a statement, the National Palace said the mandate of the commission was to “find a consensus and acceptable solutions in order to clear any dispute between the two countries on migration issues, trade border security and the regularization of binational markets.”

The talks were first agreed upon by the two sides in December in Caracas.

In a statement issued this weekend, Dominican Republic Minister of the Presidency Gustavo Montalvo said the country would enter the talks with “dignity, respect and [would stand] tall defending the national interest.”

Montalvo vowed that the Dominican Republic would enter the talks “without prejudice and without rancor.”

The case has led to severely strained ties between the two neighbours on Hispaniola.