The Colombian government is still unable to confirm whether its citizens need a visa to enter Venezuela, but said Wednesday that even if this is the case, it would not retaliate by putting restrictions on Venezuelans traveling to Colombia.
Speaking on a Medellin radio program, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said that the country would not change visa requirements for foreigners traveling to Colombia because “what we do is help the international community from Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru … to come to our country.”
“So they impose a visa on us, we will not impose one on them because we need them to come to the country,” said the president.
Reports on Tuesday said that Venezuela’s migration service sent a notice to Colombian airline Avianca in which Colombia is left out of the list of countries whose citizens do not need a visa to enter Venezuela.
Both the Venezuelan and Colombian Foreign Ministries denied being officially notified of the change, and suggested the omission may have been a mistake.
Neither government has been able to clarify the matter and Colombians traveling to Venezuela in the last two days have reported no problems on entry.