(Nation World News Spanish) — Colombia’s elected President Gustavo Petro announced that once he takes office he will reopen borders with Venezuela to “restore the full exercise of human rights” in that location.
“I have communicated with the Venezuelan government to open the border and restore full exercise of human rights at the border,” Petro wrote on his Twitter account.
I have communicated with the Venezuelan government to open the borders and restore full exercise of human rights at the border.
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) 22 June 2022
Following Petro’s announcement, Venezuela’s Questioned President Nicolas Maduro confirmed that he had held talks with Colombia’s elected president on the subject.
“I spoke to the elected President of Colombia” @petrogustavo, and on behalf of the Venezuelan people, I congratulated them on their victory. We discussed the desire to restore normalcy at the borders, various issues regarding peace and the prosperous future of both the peoples,” he wrote. on your twitter account,
In recent years, that border has been partially closed and has been the center of escalation of conflicts and tensions, which have particularly affected trade between the two countries. In 2008, commercial exchange reached approximately US$7,200 million, fell to around US$1,331 million in 2015 and was only US$221 million in 2020.
The long border, through which people and goods have passed for centuries, was closed by the Venezuelan government in 2015 following a confrontation between Venezuelan security forces and civilians, which President Nicolas Maduro attributed to “paramilitary” in Colombia and by which the former Colombian was convicted. President lvaro Uribe, who denied the allegations.
In subsequent years, the situation gradually returned to normal, but in 2019, Venezuela closed the border once again, amid rising tensions between the governments of Maduro and President Ivan Duque in Colombia.
The 2020 pandemic only made the situation worse: Colombia closed its borders in March of that year, though it reopened them in June 2021.
The Simon Bolivar, Santander and Union international bridges between the Norte de Santander (Colombia) department and the state of Tachira (Venezuela) were mainly closed. However other passes, such as those in the department of Maicao, La Guajira (Colombia), and in Maracaibo, Zulia (Venezuela), remained mostly open.
According to the Colombo-Venezuela Chamber, during the final years of the partial closure of the borders, most of the commercial exchange was processed in Colombia by the customs of Macao and Cartagena. The port of Barranquilla has played an important role in Colombia’s imports from Venezuela.
Petro held a meeting with his team regarding the transformation process
Petro will meet with his programmatic team this Wednesday in Bogota.
“It begins its public agenda before the relationship process between the outgoing and incoming governments,” its press team said in a brief statement.
Germán Paddinger and Florencia Trucco contributed to this report.
