Attempts to spark war between Venezuela and Colombia have failed, as shown by the visit of a Colombian delegation sent to Caracas to normalize relations, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez claimed Sunday.
Writing in his weekly Sunday column “Las Lineas de Chavez,” the president claimed that “internationally, the opposition to Venezuela, and their media, have not stopped throwing wood on the fire to try to bring us to fratricidal war with Colombia,”
The socialist leader cited visits by Colombian Congress President Armando Benedetti and Colombian ministers as evidence that these attempts “failed.”
“The presence of an important Colombian delegation headed by Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin on August 20 should be stressed,” Chavez said.
Last Friday Holguin and her Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro set up five bilateral commissions, whose aim will be to resolve long-standing issues, particularly in terms of security, border control, and trade between the two countries.
“I want to congratulate the bilateral commissions which … installed working groups to design a new map that expresses the full re-establishment of our relations in all areas,” Chavez said.
The five bilateral commissions were agreed upon by the two nations’ presidents during a recent summit in Santa Marta, at which severed ties were re-established.
Chavez broke relations with Colombia on July 22, after the government of former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe presented allegations of a guerrilla presence in Venezuela to the Organization of American States.
Chavez extended an olive branch to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos following the new leader’s August 7 inauguration, and the two have committed to work at normalizing relations, which have been plagued for years by issues such as security and border control.
