BUENOS AIRES, July 29 (Xinhuanet) -- Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa Thursday discussed bilateral relations and issues of "common interest" with Paraguayan Vice President Luis Alberto Castiglioni and Paraguayan Foreign Minister Leila Rachid.

    Sources of the Argentine Foreign Ministry said Thursday that the senior officials expressed satisfaction over the "excellent" relations between the two countries and exchanged views on cooperation.

    They also confirmed the compromises their respective countries made for the integration of the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) in political, social, cultural, trade and economic areas.     

    The Argentine Foreign Ministry underscored the "solid compromise" of the two governments to "shore up the democracy" in the region.

    Argentina and Paraguay highlighted in the talks "the full respect for and promotion of human rights, the combat against corruption and the search for solutions to the problem of poverty,the attention to asymmetries and the promotion with these purposes of the sustained development of the region."

    The governments also agreed to set up in the last quarter of the year the Political Coordination and Integration Commission andvarious sub-commissions to define new agendas of bilateral cooperation.

    Diplomatic sources said that Rachid had persuaded Bielsa for Argentina to support within the realm of the Organization of American States (OAS) Paraguay's candidacy for the Assistant Secretariat-General of that organization. Enditem