The Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, has ordered this Tuesday to his Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, the reestablishment "immediately" Venezuela’s military relations with its neighboring country Colombia.
As confirmed by the press service of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB), the minister has received "instructions" of President Maduro of "establish immediate contact with the Colombian Ministry of Defense for the reestablishment of military relations".
In this way, Caracas and Bogotá take another step towards the normality of their relations, seriously damaged during the mandate of former Colombian President Iván Duque and that with the arrival of the current president, Gustavo Petro, it was announced that their restoration would be advocated.
Thus, these statements by Padrino fully coincide with Maduro’s latest appeal to his Colombian counterpart to "rebuild brotherhood on the basis of respect and love between peoples" from Venezuela and Colombia, according to the Colombian newspaper ‘El Tiempo’.
Bilateral relations between the two nations were broken in February 2019 by order of President Maduro in response to the support of the Duque Government to the "president in charge" Juan Guaidó and the non-recognition of Maduro as the country’s leader.
Since then, Colombia and Venezuela had been involved in a crossroads of accusations about alleged collusion with terrorism. Maduro accused Duque of having terrorist plans against him, while from Bogotá it was denounced that Caracas gave shelter to Colombian criminals.
