The two South American countries have announced that they were going to reinstall ambassadors and completely reopen their common border. This return to normal comes after the recent arrival in the power of the new Colombian left president Gustavo Petro.
Le Monde with AFP
The planned rapprochement is materialized. Venezuela and Colombia announced, Thursday, August 11, that they were going to exchange ambassadors, more than three years after having broken their diplomatic relations.
In Caracas, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that former Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia had asked for his accreditation from the Colombian government “and will soon be in Bogota”.
“I decided, in response to the Venezuelan government who appointed the ambassador who will have the responsibility of normalizing relations between the two countries, to appoint Armando Benedetti as Colombia ambassador to Venezuela”, retorted Gustavo Petro In a video addressed to the media. Mr. Benedetti is a former senator.
Caracas had broken his diplomatic relations with Bogota in February 2019, when right -wing Colombian President Ivan Duque had not recognized the re -election of Nicolas Maduro and had supported the proclamation of the opposition chief Juan Guaido as interim president . Mr. Maduro has also reported many occasions of supposed plans fomented by M. Duque to overthrow him.
sensitive subject
In addition to the exchange of ambassadors, the standardization process provides for the complete reopening of the border of more than 2,000 km which separates the two countries, completely closed to vehicles since 2015 and reopened only to pedestrians since the end of the ‘last year. Caracas and Bogota will also restore their military relations.
“We will continue step by step and at a safe pace to advance towards the recovery and reconstruction of political, diplomatic and commercial relations,” said Maduro on the public channel VTV.
Gustavo Petro, first leftist president in the history of Colombia elected on June 19, announced during his campaign that he would restore diplomatic relations with Venezuela as soon as he took office on August 7. >
mm. Petro and Maduro have already maintained each other on the phone but the presence of guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug traffickers in the common porous border area, which millions of Venezuelans have crossed to flee the crisis, remains a sensitive subject.