After a meeting with members of the Biden administration, Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva responded to criticism from US officials of having Venezuela as a guarantor of peace talks with the ELN.
Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva reported that was invited by senior Biden administration officials to the White House to talk about neuralgic issues of the so-called total peace such as extradition. He stated that “nobody is going to hand over their weapons to come out the other side extradited to the United States or any other country. Possibilities were reviewed within Total Peace but without the intention of ignoring extradition.”
Leyva said he was unaware that the Farc dissident “Ivan Marquez” has proposed that the Second Marquetalia approaches the policy of “total peace” of President Gustavo Petro, as previously reported by the High Commissioner for Peace in Colombia.
“I don’t know what Iván Márquez has said. You are talking to me about some criminal acts of Mr. Iván Márquez in Venezuela I have no idea about thatsaid the Chancellor.
Leyva also stated that he has held talks with Salvatore Mancuso in which the former paramilitary chief stated his intention to be heard before the JEP and that, according to the foreign minister, would serve “a lot” to establish what happened in Colombia during the years of internal conflict.
Likewise, Leyva responded to criticism from Biden cabinet officials such as Brian Nichols and Republican and Democratic congressmen who criticized Venezuela for becoming a guarantor country of possible peace agreements with the ELN.
“Some parliamentarians are oblivious and lack information because I have never seen them present in the dialogues that I have had, so they get versions that confuse them, but the observations are welcome, they are enriching, they are part of democracy” said Leyva.
When asked about the controversy of the Ambassador of Colombia in Venezuela, Armando Benedetti, Hugging Nicolás Maduro, the foreign minister said “if Trump was able to dance with the leader of North Korea, why can’t Colombia show calm on the border?” and added that he can’t tell Benedetti who to hug and who not to.
