Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin announced that she will meet with her Ecuadorean counterpart, Ricardo Patiño, while in New York in September for the United Nations General Assembly meeting.
Holguin also announced her plans to travel to Ecuador in mid-October to continue the process of normalizing diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Ecuador broke off relations with Colombia in March 2008 after Colombia carried out a raid on a FARC camp in Ecuadorean territory, killing 26 people including the rebels’ supreme commander “Raul Reyes.”
Holguin stated that relations are “going well” between the countries, but that she and Patiño would discuss “sensitive issues” in order to “have more clarity once relations are restored.”
Holguin also highlighted the work of a commission established to look at Colombian refugees in Ecuador. An estimated 135,000 Colombian refugees in Ecuador are in need of international protection, according to the U.N.
President Juan Manuel Santos will meet with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama on Friday at the U.N. General Assembly.
