PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) – Trinidad’s foreign minister resigned yesterday, but he gave no reasons for his departure, the prime minister’s office said.

Knowlson Gift, who was appointed to the post in 2001 by Prime Minister Patrick Manning, stepped down without providing details about his future plans, said Roy Rique, a spokesman for the prime minister.

Gift, a career diplomat who has held various posts across Latin America, is best known for his attempts to have Trinidad selected as the home of the secretariat for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)

A final decision on the matter was never reached since US-led efforts to establish the FTAA as the world’s largest free trade area – from Alaska to Argentina – have been blocked by some South American countries.

Gift also had pushed for Caribbean economic and political integration.

Manning, who was in Washington to meet with US Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman and State Department officials, has not yet chosen a replacement, Rique said.