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Pompeo to visit Colombia amid tensions with Venezuela
BOGOTA, Dec 28, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will
meet Colombian President Ivan Duque in the resort city of Cartagena next
week, as tensions flare with neighboring Venezuela.
Duque and Pompeo will seek to “continue strengthening the bilateral
relationship and discuss the crisis provoked by the dictatorship in
Venezuela” of President Nicolas Maduro, a statement from the Colombian
president’s office said Thursday.
The US State Department, in its own announcement, said the two would
discuss “the regional crisis perpetrated by the disastrous policies of the
Maduro regime.”
The meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday and comes after Duque asked
countries “that defend democracy” not to recognize Maduro’s new
administration, due to be seated on January 10.
The socialist leader, who has overseen Venezuela’s descent into the worst
economic crisis of its history, will start a second mandate after winning an
election earlier this year that was branded a fraud by the US, European
Union, opposition groups and the Organization of American States.
Colombia, a strategic ally of the United States, is leading the regional
opposition to Venezuela, with which it has extremely frayed diplomatic ties.
The arrival of Russian strategic bombers in Venezuela to participate in
military exercises at the start of December sent tensions soaring.
Millions of Venezuelans have fled the economic crisis in their country,
many into neighboring Colombia. According to the United Nations, 2.3 million
people have left since 2015.
Maduro, who frequently denounces plots against him, insisted this month
that the United States was planning to overthrow him with the help of
Colombia’s right-wing government and Brazil’s far-right president-elect Jair
Bolsonaro.
Pompeo is visiting South America for Bolsonaro’s inauguration.
BSS/AFP/GMR/0839 hrs