The foreign ministers of Colombia and Ecuador are “happy and satisfied” about progress made in re-establishing ties that were cut after a Colombian cross-border attack on a FARC camp in 2008, Colombia’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
The statement followed a meeting between Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin and her Ecuadorean counterpart Ricardo Patiño in Quito.
According to Holguin, Ecuador can count on Colombia as “the friend, the ally, the helper and the neighbor that is always there when needed.”
“We want to continue working and making firm steps so that the day we have completely re-established ties we will know it is forever,” the foreign minister said.
Holguin stressed that one of the priorities of the Santos administration is “the relationship with the region and the neighbors.”
Holguin announced that the two neighbors’ defense ministers, together with the deputy ministers of transport, will meet in the Colombian capital of Bogota in January to push the improvement of transport in the border region where guerrilla groups and drug traffickers pose a threat to the bilateral trade.