Colombian Vice President-elect, Angelino Garzon will travel to Quito Thursday to pay a “courtesy visit” to his Ecuadorean counterpart Lenin Moreno, in a step towards rebuilding ties between the neighboring Andean nations.
Icy relations, frozen after the Colombian military raided a FARC camp on Ecuadorean soil in 2008, now appear to be thawing, after recent meetings between the Ecuadorean government and the incoming Colombian administration.
The vice presidents’ meeting follows a similiar courtesy visit Monday by Colombia’s incoming Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin to Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño in Quito. Speaking after their hour-long meeting, Holguin said Patiño had been very pleased with her visit.
Patiño refused to comment on the exact content of the meeting, but said that both countries would ensure a “panoramic revision” of their bilateral relations.
Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa has suggested he would like to attend the inauguration of Colombian President-Elect, Juan Manuel Santos, on August 7. However Ecuador has said that its head of state has not officially been invited, despite Colombian claims that an invitation has been sent.
