Nothing in the U.S.-Colombia military agreement suggests that the U.S. may use Colombia to invade Venezuela, assured Colombia’s former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos on Tuesday.
The former minister, Juan Manuel Santos, said that there was no discussion in the agreement that would allow for the United States military to use Colombian territory as a base from which to attack Venezuela, reported news station W Radio.
Santos explained that according to the agreement there will be no military base in Colombia controlled solely by U.S. personnel and he declared that Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez was using the agreement “as an excuse to create a storm in a teacup.”
Santos added that one of the main intentions of the military treaty was to enable Colombia to fight drug trafficking and terrorism and that Venezuela is simply attempting to blame all it’s internal issues of the military bases.
The former minister reiterated that the agreement had not passed through Congress because it did not involve a transit of troops between either Colombia or the U.S.
With regard to Colombia’s current crisis with Venezuela, presidential candidates Rafael Pardo and Sergio Fajardo stated that they supported President Alvaro Uribe’s decision to request the assitance of the Organization of American States in the face of war threats from Chavez.
