Venezuela and Colombia have taken, with the appointment of ambassadors, one more step towards the normalization of diplomatic relations, after the inauguration of Gustavo Petro as the new Colombian president, this Sunday.
A friend of Chávez and a former guerrilla fighter who considers himself a “progressive”. Who is Gustavo Petro, the new president of Colombia
According to the Venezuelan state television VTV, the leader of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, announced on Thursday the appointment of Félix Plasencia as the new ambassador to Colombia, and said that the former foreign minister “will soon be in Bogotá.”
Caracas cut diplomatic ties with Bogotá in 2019when the then Colombian president, Iván Duque, did not recognize the re-election of Nicolás Maduro and supported the proclamation of the opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president.
Also on Thursday, Gustavo Petro announced the appointment of former senator Armando Benedetti as Colombia’s representative in Caracas.
I decided, in response to the government of Venezuela, which has appointed an ambassador who will have the responsibility of normalizing diplomatic relations between the two countries, to appoint Armando Benedetti as Colombia’s ambassador to Venezuela,” Petro told reporters.
Petro stressed that Benedetti has an “arduous task” so that “the two sister peoples can protect their rights, guarantee their freedoms and achieve that between Colombia and Venezuela wealth can be created for both peoples”.
In social networks, Benedetti promised that bilateral trade will reach 10,000 million dollars (9,700 million euros), “benefiting the more than eight million Colombians who live on the border.”
In a meeting with businessmen from the industry, Nicolás Maduro said that he had appointed a team, headed by Executive Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, to work on a “very serious plan” for the “scheduled” and “progressive” reopening of the border with Colombia.
The more than 2,000-kilometre border that separates the two countries has been completely closed to vehicles since 2015 and reopened to pedestrians at the end of last year.
Gustavo Petro and Nicolás Maduro have already spoken by phone, but the presence of guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug traffickers in the porous border area, where millions of Venezuelans have crossed to flee the crisis, remains a sensitive issue.
Maduro assured that the reestablishment of political, diplomatic and commercial relations between the two countries will be of mutual benefit and that it will represent an “opening to trade, investment, monetary movement.”
On Tuesday, Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López announced the “immediate” reestablishment of military relations with Colombia, suspended since 2019.
Gustavo Petro, the first leftist president in Colombian history, elected on June 19, announced during the campaign that he would establish diplomatic relations with Venezuela as soon as he took office on August 7.
Source: Observadora
