Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Wednesday that Venezuela and Colombia, which no longer have diplomatic relations since 2019, should “Normalize” their reports.
“We must solve our problems, regularize, normalize commercial, productive, economic relations. We must normalize consular and diplomatic relations ”, he said on national television, welcoming an initiative of the Colombian Senate which proposes to create a binational parliamentary commission on relations between the two neighbors sharing 2,200 km of land borders.
At the same time, however, Nicolas Maduro accused Colombian President Ivan Duque of not providing consular assistance to Venezuelans living in Colombia, where nearly two of the 30 million people who have fled the economic and political crisis in their country are refugees since 2013. country.
Borders reopened on paper only
Wishing a “Page that turns”, Mr. Maduro invited Colombian businessmen to ” to resume “ their investments in the country mired in the worst crisis in recent history, with hyperinflation and seven consecutive years of recession.
Caracas had severed diplomatic relations in 2019 with Bogota after the recognition by Colombia, as well as by fifty other countries including the United States, of Juan Guaido as interim president.
But the border between the two countries had already been almost completely closed since 2015 due to recurring tensions between the two neighbors.
Recently, both Caracas and Bogota announced the reopening of their land borders with no effect on the ground.