Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin and her Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro and Colombia agreed to postponed a meeting scheduled to address issues along their common border until after the socialist nation’s congressional elections on September 26.
Holguin said that the meeting, which was scheduled to be held in the Colombian town of Paraguachon, in the La Guajira department, will be postponed until the end of September or the beginning of October. She did not provide more specifics details about dates or locations.
The Colombian minister said that Maduro “is doing the work on the border on the Venezuelan side and we are on ours, and as soon as we set the date, we’ll make the agenda.”
Holguin made the announcement from the Colombian border town of Cucuta, where she traveled to evaluate the economic hardships inflicted on the area by the crisis with Venezuela.
Colombia-Venezuela relations have been rocky for years. However they exploded in July when the administration of then Colombian President Alvaro Uribe alleged that Venezuela was harboring Colombian guerrillas within its borders. The accusations triggered Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to break all ties with Colombia.
New Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos sought to soothe ruffled feathers after he assumed the presidency on August 7. Colombia and Venezuela agreed to restore ties following a meeting between the two nations’ heads of state in the Colombian port of Santa Marta on August 10.
Since then they have created bilateral commissions to address their long-standing issues, particularly in terms of security, border control, and trade between the two countries.