Backgrounder: Organization of American States

As the organizer of the Summit of the Americas, the Washington, D.C.-based Organization of American States (OAS) was founded on April 30, 1948 with the aim of fostering cooperation in the pan-American region.

In that year, 21 nations from North, South and Central America and the Caribbean met in Bogota, Colombia, adopting the Charter of the Organization of American States, which affirmed their commitment to common goals and respect for national sovereignty.

The OAS is to promote cooperation in a range of areas, including trade negotiation, disaster mitigation and electoral observation, mainly through support and training.

Third-four of all the 35 countries of the Americas are members of the OAS. Cuba was suspended from the OAS in 1962 due to pressure from the United States. While the suspension was revoked in 2009, Havana refused to return to the bloc.

The 21 original members are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela.

In the following decades, others joined, including Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Grenada, Suriname, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Bahamas, St. Kitts and Nevis, Canada, Belize and Guyana.

Current OAS General Secretary Jose Miguel Insulza, of Chile, concludes his five-year term this year and will be succeeded by Uruguay's former foreign minister, Luis Almagro.

The region's majority Latin countries, however, created their own bloc in 2011 as a counterbalance to the Washington-centric OAS. Called the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, it gathers 33 nations, leaving out the United States and Canada.

The OAS has been the sponsor of the Summit of the Americas since 1994. The seventh two-day summit is to start on Friday in Panama City, capital of Panama, gathering heads of state and government, and high-level officials from across the Americas.

The much-anticipated event will mark the first time in more than half a century that Cuba will attend the hemispheric gathering, a sign of the continuing rapprochement between the island nation and the United States.

At the summit in 2012, Latin American nations called for Cuba to be invited to the next meeting, a demand said to reflect both waning U.S. influence in the region and increasing Latin American integration. Endi