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Security tight as Peru prepares for summit

LIMA, Peru (CNN) -- Peru is deploying 20,000 police and special forces to ensure the safety of leaders gathering here for the 11th Ibero-American Summit this weekend.

The summit, to be held Friday and Saturday, will be attended by 23 world leaders from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal.

Military personnel, armored vehicles and security checkpoints are in place. Security is tightest in the quiet neighborhood surrounding the hotel where the summit is to be held, with all persons, bags and vehicles to be searched.

The summit will focus on economic problems in the region and the war on terror, and Peruvian Foreign Minister Diego Garcia-Sayan said there will be declarations involving the international economic world and international terrorism.

Ibero-American finance ministers are calling for solidarity with Argentina to prevent its crisis-ridden economy from defaulting on loans. Also, they are appealing for an end to Cuba's exclusion from multinational and regional loan institutions.

Cuban President Fidel Castro was expected to arrive in Peru on Friday. Leaders from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Spain, Guatemala, Portugal and Paraguay have already arrived.

There have been protests in advance of the summit. Laid-off Peruvian workers staged a peaceful march asking to meet with government officials to resolve the fate of thousands who lost their jobs during the tenure of former President Alberto Fujimori.

The "Mothers Against Repression," a Miami-based anti-Castro group, is in town to draw attention to Cuba's exile community throughout the world and the lack of freedoms in the island nation.

-- CNN Correspondent Lucia Newman contributed to this report.