Colombia’s Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo is the in the United States for a number of meetings with top officials from the administration of President Donald Trump.
Trujillo met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday to talk about the countries’ joint efforts to combat drug trafficking and the ongoing crisis in Colombia’s neighbor to the east, Venezuela.
Colombia’s peace process that seeks to end decades of violence was also on the agenda, according to the Foreign Ministry website.
Following his meeting with Pompeo, Colombia’s foreign minister said that “we talked about Colombia’s fight against the global drug problem… as well as the issue of Venezuela.”
Secretary Pompeo acknowledged the great effort of President Duque and the importance of the progress that has been made.
Colombia’s Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo
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On Monday, Trujillo met with Elliot Abrams, Trump’s Special Representative for Venezuela.
Following this meeting, Colombia’s foreign minister stressed the alleged ties between the government of of Venezuela’s disputed president Nicolas Maduro and Colombia’s last-standing rebel group, the ELN.
Trujillo is also expected to meet with National Security Adviser John Bolton, the director for Latin America of the White House, Mauricio Claver-Carone, and the director of the Office of National Policy for Drug Control, James Carroll.
Following his obligations in Washington, the foreign minister will travel to New York to attend the United Nations’ Security Council hearing on his country’s peace process that began in 2016.
The meeting comes days after the council visited Colombia to inform itself of the progress and challenges of the process that is opposed by Colombia’s far-right ruling party, the Democratic Center.
During this visit, Duque asked the UN to extend its monitoring mission in Colombia for another year. The UN peace observers’ mandate was due to end in September.
