Venezuela and Colombia announced Thursday that they will exchange ambassadors, more than three years after they severed diplomatic ties after new Colombian President Gustavo Petros took office.
In Caracas, President Nicolas Maduro said former foreign minister Felix Placencia has already requested accreditation from the Colombian government and “will be in Bogotá soon.”
“I have decided, in return for the appointment by the Venezuelan government of an ambassador who will be responsible for the normalization of relations between the two countries, to name Armando Benedetti as the ambassador of Colombia to Venezuela,” Mr. Petros said on his part in video he addressed to the media. Mr. Benedetti is a former senator.
Caracas cut diplomatic ties with Bogotá in February 2019 after right-wing President Ivan Duque decided not to recognize Mr Maduro’s re-election and support self-proclaimed interim president opposition leader Juan Guaido.
Mr. Maduro had also repeatedly complained that Mr. Duque’s government was plotting to overthrow him.
Apart from the exchange of ambassadors, the normalization process also foresees a full opening of the 2,000-plus kilometer border shared by the two countries, which has remained completely closed to vehicles since 2015 and reopened to pedestrians late last year. Caracas and Bogotá also intend to restore relations between their armed forces.
“We will continue step by step, with a sure pace, to move towards the restoration and rebuilding of political, diplomatic and commercial relations,” assured Mr. Maduro speaking to the public television network VTV.
Mr. Petro, the first left-wing president in Colombia’s history — he was elected on June 19 — had announced during the election campaign that he would restore relations with Venezuela after taking office on August 7.
Messrs. Petro and Maduro have already discussed by phone, but the presence of rebels, paramilitaries and drug traffickers in the zone of the porous border of the two states, through which millions of Venezuelan citizens who have migrated due to the political and economic crisis, have crossed, remains a delicate issue.
SOURCE: APE-ME
Source: Capital
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