Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says it is necessary to repair diplomatic relations with Colombia. – Reuters file pic
CARACAS, Oct 21 – After two years of mudslinging and ruptured ties, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said yesterday it was necessary to repair diplomatic relations with Colombia.
Maduro’s statements came hours after Executive Vice President Delcy Rodriguez asked United Nations High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet to pay attention to what Rodriguez called the Colombian government’s policy of xenophobia and violence against Venezuelan migrants.
“We have to regularise, normalise, commercial, productive and economic relations,” Maduro said in a live broadcast on state television. “We have to regularize consular relations, diplomatic relations.”
The Venezuelan president, who on other occasions has shown the intention to reestablish relations with the neighbouring country, referred to a letter from the Colombian Senate released by National Assembly head Jorge Rodriguez. It proposed creating binational commissions to re-establish trade between both countries.
Later, Colombian President Ivan Duque spoke in favor of reopening the border to facilitate access to goods and services for Venezuelans, but warned he would not recognize the Maduro government.
“What Colombia is not going to do is recognise a disgraceful, corrupt, drug trafficker dictatorship,” Duque said earlier in a joint conference with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “To recognise it would be surrendering the values that our country has historically defended.”
In response to Duque government’s aiding the Venezuelan opposition’s efforts to bring humanitarian aid into the country, Maduro suspended diplomatic relations with Colombia in February 2019, giving Colombian officials a 24-hour deadline to leave.
Colombia and Venezuela share a porous 2,219-kilometre border. In September, Venezuela’s vice president announced reopening the border to Colombia with the removal of containers from bridges, but the authorisation has yet to be completed.
“We need to build relationships, respecting political life, ideas, the ideological baggage of those who govern over there and those of us who govern here,” added Maduro.
Colombia and several other Western countries, including the United States, recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate leader.
Duque calls Maduro a “dictator,” while the self-proclaimed socialist president has accused him of participating in plans to attack Venezuela and overthrow him. – Reuters