29 July 2010 / REUTERS, BUENOS AIRES
Venezuela will present a proposal this week aimed at ending an escalating diplomatic row with neighboring Colombia, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said on Tuesday.
Following talks with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez in Buenos Aires, Maduro said a “concrete proposal” would be presented to the Unasur grouping of South American states at a meeting in the Ecuadorean capital Quito on Thursday. “After hearing these conversations and seeing the vision South America has on this issue, our government will present Unasur with a concrete proposal that gives the methodology for a peace plan,” Maduro told reporters. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez broke diplomatic ties with Colombia last week after outgoing Colombian President Alvaro Uribe accused Caracas of allowing leftist Colombian rebels to shelter across the border. Chavez, a leftist ex-soldier whose popularity has slipped ahead of legislative elections next month, called those charges a hoax and an excuse for Colombia to launch a U.S.-backed invasion that he said would start a “100-year war.” Maduro, who had ordered the closure of Venezuela’s embassy in Bogota, said relations with Colombia could improve after President-elect Juan Manuel Santos took over from Uribe on Aug. 7. Santos met Fernandez and her husband, former President Nestor Kirchner -- who now heads Unasur -- on Monday in Buenos Aires. “Colombia’s next government will need to rectify its relation with Venezuela,” Maduro said. “We have the political will to build a new type of relation based on an absolute respect for Venezuela.” Maduro, who is on a regional tour, also met with the presidents of Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay and said he would meet the presidents of Chile, Peru, and Bolivia later this week. Venezuela has beefed up its troop presence along the border with Colombia, but the border region remained calm.Most analysts believe a military clash is unlikely between the nations, which have often squabbled over border security and guerrillas, even though border skirmishes are possible in a region marked by clashing ideologies and drug trafficking.
