Colombia
Venezuela and Colombia restore diplomatic ties after three years
Venezuela and Colom restored full diplomatic relations Sunday after a three-year break, as a new leftist government in Bogota takes shape.
A new Colombian ambassador, Armando Benedetti, arrived in Caracas and said on Twitter, “Relations with Venezuela should never have been severed. We are brothers and an imaginary line cannot separate us.”
He was welcomed by deputy foreign minister Rander Pena Ramirez.
Colombia’s new leftist president, Gustavo Petro, and Venezuela’s socialist president Nicolas Maduro announced on August 11 that they planned to restore diplomatic relations that were severed in 2019.
That rupture was the culmination of years of tension between leftist Venezuela under successive conservative presidents starting with Alvaro Uribe.
Embassies and consulates in both countries were closed, and flights between the neighbors grounded.
Even the 2,000-kilometer (1,200-mile) land border between the two countries was closed between 2019 and October 2021, when it was opened to pedestrians only.
Petro is first leftist president.
The last president in Ivan Duque, did not recognize Maduro as president—but rather opposition leader Juan Guaido.
was one of around 60 countries to do so, having rejected Venezuela’s 2018 presidential election, which was boycotted by the opposition.
In addition to exchanging ambassadors, the normalization process will include the full reopening of the border, which has remained largely closed to vehicles.
