Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe mended relations on Friday after months of sniping that threatened trade and unleashed a diplomatic crisis between Latin America’s top US opponent and closest US ally.
Chavez, who just months ago called reconciliation impossible, said the talks allowed the two to “completely turn the page after the storm that passed.”
“From today on begins a new era,” Chavez said after the talks. “We’re destined to be together.”
PHOTO: AFP
The two have repeatedly clashed over their stances toward Colombia’s leftist rebels, but Uribe said “we’re brothers” and gave Chavez a book about South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.
It was their first one-on-one meeting since August last year.
Analysts say the two are setting aside their on-and-off feud because each benefits politically from normalized relations. The countries share some US$6 billion in annual trade, and the leaders pledged to link their Andean countries with a new railway.
Relations sank to their lowest point in decades in March after Colombia attacked a rebel camp in Ecuador. Chavez responded by briefly dispatching troops to the border and temporarily pulling out his ambassador.
Uribe said he hopes relations can be similarly restored with Ecuador’s leftist government, and Chavez said he believes it’s possible.
“I’m sure President [Rafael] Correa would also be willing — I think so — to re-establish direct relations with Colombia as we have,” said Chavez, who will visit Ecuador next week.
Chavez reiterated his willingness to help mediate in Colombia’s four-decade conflict, but only if invited.
“We’ve tried to help in [Colombia’s] internal matters only when it’s been asked of us,” he said.
During a spat over Chavez’s mediation role with rebels earlier this year, the Venezuelan president lashed out at Uribe a “pawn of the US empire” and likened him to a mafia boss.
Colombia, meanwhile, accused Chavez of offering an open-ended loan of at least US$250 million to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC — charges bolstered by documents Colombia said were retrieved from a laptop at the bombed guerrilla camp. Colombian officials also have said Venezuela has long harbored several rebel leaders.
Chavez denies the accusations, and Uribe did not publicly bring them up.
“We came out refreshed and relieved,” Chavez said after some four hours of talks at the Paraguana oil refining complex.
He pledged cooperation with Colombia in counter-drug efforts.
Chavez made reconciliation easier for Uribe last month when he called on the FARC to disarm — after previously urging world leaders to consider the FARC a legitimate army of insurgents rather than a terrorist group.
At a news conference on Friday, Uribe blamed the rebels for flouting past peace initiatives.
“On many occasions in Colombia, all the conditions for definitive peace have been created [but] the terrorists haven’t wanted to,” Uribe said. “Many citizens of the world have tried to mediate. ... The answer was more violence.”
Uribe said Venezuela and Cuba have helped in talks with rebels of the smaller National Liberation Army, or ELN, but said those rebels responded “without advances toward peace.”
Through Chavez’s mediation, the FARC freed six hostages earlier this year. The FARC said subsequently that it was finished with unilateral releases, and Colombia’s military rescued 15 rebel-held hostages last week in a bold operation that pushed Uribe’s popularity to new highs.
“Uribe is strengthened internationally,” while “Chavez has realized he was riding the losing horse” and expediently adjusted his stance, said, Colombian analyst and former deputy justice minister Rafael Nieto said.
Adolfo Tayhardat, a Venezuelan analyst, said Uribe is looking to defend Colombian trade while Chavez is aiming to ease conflict and shore up support ahead of state and local elections in November.
The FARC issued a statement on Friday condemning what it called the “betrayal” of two guerrillas responsible for holding the 15 hostages freed by Colombian troops, and said it remains open to trading other hostages for imprisoned guerrillas.
Neither leader referred to that statement, and Uribe did not publicly mention any invitation for Chavez to participate in new negotiations.
“What we want now is to be able to have the rest of the 27 hostages who the FARC call ‘exchangeables’ freed quickly,” Uribe said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS