Ecuador proposes the creation of a “bilateral friendship agreement” with Colombia, in a bid to improve fractured diplomatic relations between the two Andean nations.
The president of Ecuador’s national assembly, Fernando Cordero, proposed the agreement to Colombian lawmakers to aid “the management of social and economic development projects in border areas.”
Cordero proposed the idea during a visit to Bogota this week, in which he met with Colombia Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez, as well as other Colombia officials.
The Ecuadorean and Bermudez discussed “bilateral and regional issues related to the normalization of diplomatic relations,” according to the Colombian Foreign Ministry.
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa reiterated Thursday that diplomatic relations with Colombia would not improve until he was given more information about the contents of the computers seized during the Colombian army’s 2008 FARC raid in Ecuador.
Colombia’s diplomatic relations with Ecuador were severed in 2008, after the Colombian army carried out a raid on a FARC camp on Ecuadorean territory.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe promised in a heads of states’ meeting in Mexico in March that Colombia would provide Ecuador with information seized during the raid. However, Bermudez has since said that the computers will not be handed over because Colombia’s prosecutor general is using them as evidence.
