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Colombia and Ecuador say aim to re-establish ties

Original Source: http://www.alertnet.org
Author: Reuters
Original Publication Date: 25 September 2009

Colombia and Ecuador said on Thursday they will open talks next month aimed at re-establishing diplomatic ties that were broken by Quito last year after Colombian forces bombed a rebel camp in Ecuador.

The raid ordered by Colombia’s hard-line conservative President Alvaro Uribe killed the No. 2 commander of the country’s biggest guerrilla group, who was hiding in a secret jungle camp on Ecuador’s side of the border.

The two governments issued a joint statement on Thursday saying that Colombia agrees to launch no more attacks on Ecuadorean territory and that Ecuador will not tolerate the presence of irregular armed groups in the country.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa pulled his ambassador from Bogota after the March 2008 attack, which was also denounced by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Correa and Chavez are socialist leaders often at odds with Uribe, who is Washington’s main ally in South America and whose government has received billions of dollars in U.S. aid aimed at fighting the rebels and the cocaine trade that funds their Marxist revolution. (Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra, writing by Hugh Bronstein)

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