The Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro reported this Wednesday that he spoke with the president-elect of ColombiaGustavo Petro, on the “disposition to restore normality at the borders”, affected since 2015.
“I spoke with the elected president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, and on behalf of the Venezuelan people, I congratulated him on his victory. We discussed the willingness to restore normalcy at the borders, various issues about peace and the prosperous future of both peoples,” Maduro tweeted.
Venezuela broke relations with Colombia in 2019 after the government of the outgoing ruler Iván Duque branded Maduro’s re-election a year earlier as fraud and recognized the opposition Juan Guaidó as interim president.
Petro, who announced during the campaign that he would normalize relations with Maduro, wrote earlier on Twitter that he communicated “with the Venezuelan government to open the borders and restore the full exercise of human rights on the border.”
the border between Colombia Y Venezuela, which was the most active in Latin America, closed in 2019 after the rupture of relations, although since 2015 vehicular passage was already restricted. Since then, the use of the so-called “trails”, clandestine steps in the porous border of more than 2,200 km, proliferated among the inhabitants of both countries.
Pedestrian and river traffic partially resumed at the end of 2021. The passage of vehicles and merchandise remains closed in the Colombian city of Cúcuta, where the main border bridges are located.
No further details of the conversation between Ripe Y Petrothe first leftist to reach the presidency of Colombia who assumes on August 7.
The border has also been the scene of multiple attacks by irregular armed groups against the Colombian and Venezuelan public forces, and of an attack with rifle bursts against a helicopter in which Duque was travelling.
Duque has repeatedly accused Maduro of giving refuge to Colombian guerrillas and drug traffickers in his territory, which Caracas denies, while accusing the outgoing president’s administration of sending paramilitaries to destabilize and encourage assassination plans in Venezuela.
Colombia It welcomes two of the six million Venezuelans who have migrated due to the crisis in their country.
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