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South American leaders to discuss Colombia-Venezuela relationship

29 July 2010 03:59 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. An emergency meeting of South American leaders has been scheduled Thursday in Quito, Ecuador to defuse a bitter dispute that began when Colombian President Alvaro Uribe accused his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, of supporting Colombian guerrillas, APA reports quoting The Washington Post.
The accusations prompted Chavez to sever relations with Colombia and charge that Colombia was preparing to invade his oil-rich country. In a speech on Sunday, he accused the Obama administration of being behind the machinations and said he would immediately end oil exports to the United States should Colombia strike, "even if we have to eat rocks here."
Political analysts familiar with the long-running feud between the two countries wondered about the timing Uribe’s accusations. His government has since 2008 released reams of seized rebel documents that demonstrate close links between Colombian rebels and Chavez, who has often publicly lauded the guerrillas.
But with only days left in his presidency, Uribe’s government went further, releasing video and photographs last week that Colombian diplomats said showed rebel activity inside Venezuela. Venezuela denied the accusations and said Uribe’s real motive was to sabotage any chance at rapprochement with Colombia’s incoming president, Juan Manuel Santos.
For now, Latin American leaders are simply looking to lower the volume of an increasingly nasty war of words. "Brazil’s position is to cool down the crisis until the new government takes over," Marco Aurelio Garcia, a foreign policy advisor to Brazil’s president, told reporters on Wednesday.