Venezuela and Colombia will increase the number of troops deployed along their shared border at informal crossing points where armed criminal groups linked to drug trafficking often operate, the defense ministers of the two countries said on Thursday (11).
The ministers met in Caracas to discuss the threat to the security of groups “that cross the border and carry out criminal activities both in Venezuelan and Colombian territory,” said Colombian Defense Minister, Ivan Velasquez in a broadcast by the Venezuelan state television channel.
Authorities did not specify how many troops would be sent to the border or when. The border stretches some 2,200 kilometers, much of it through remote jungles.
Velásquez also discussed the Colombian government’s efforts to “hit the finances of criminal groups as hard as possible” as a way to weaken them, he said.
Venezuela and Colombia re-established ties in August last year after leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro took office.
The Venezuelan Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino said that the two countries have been working to “build trust little by little, although the process is a bit tortuous”.
Prior to Petro’s inauguration, relations were frosty, with the two countries’ governments trading accusations of meddling in each other’s affairs.
Bogotá had said Caracas supported guerrillas and drug traffickers operating in Colombia, while Venezuela accused Colombia of supporting armed insurgents plotting to topple President Nicolas Maduro.
Source: CNN Brasil
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