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LATIN AMERICA |
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Ecuador, Colombia Progress on Restoring Ties
COTACACHI, Ecuador – The governments of
Ecuador and Colombia will designate by Nov.
15 charges d’affaires in their respective
capitals and will reactivate a binational
border commission to handle security
matters.
The announcement was made Tuesday by
Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Fander Falconi
and Colombian counterpart Jaime Bermudez
after a meeting that was part of the
mechanism developed by both governments to
try and re-establish diplomatic relations,
suspended since March 2008.
The two foreign ministers met in the
northern highland town of Cotacachi under
the auspices of the secretary-general of the
Organization of American States, Jose Miguel
Insulza, and a representative of former U.S.
President Jimmy Carter’s Atlanta-based
Carter Center, Jennifer McCoy.
Ecuador broke off relations with Colombia on
March 3, 2008, two days after Bogota’s
attack on a clandestine Colombian rebel camp
inside Ecuador, which left 25 dead.
After keeping their distance for 18 months,
Quito and Bogota decided to go ahead with a
“direct dialogue” to try and re-establish
bilateral relations through commissions
charged with analyzing matters of security,
border development and sensitive issues.
At a joint press conference with Bermudez,
Falconi said that after Tuesday’s meeting it
has been decided to reactivate the border
commission known as Combifron.
That organization, made up of military high
commands from both countries, Falconi said,
will be presided over by the respective
defense ministers.
“Ecuador has the political will to go ahead”
with the process of normalizing diplomatic
relations with Colombia, Falconi said,
adding that his government will make every
effort to achieve that objective, on the
basis of a “decent handling” of differences
that “would favor the interests of the two
republics.”
For his part, Bermudez stressed the accords
reached Tuesday in Cotacachi and said that
Colombia is also devoted to “finding
formulas” that will allow “relations to be
normalized.” EFE
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