Maduro offers support to Petro to seek a truce with the ELN

Venezuela will support Colombia in the search for a bilateral ceasefire with the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN), according to a joint statement published on Saturday (01.07.2023) after the meeting between Presidents Nicolás Maduro and Gustavo Petro in Caracas.

The “extraordinary meeting”, which lasted for almost three hours and ended without statements from the leaders, served to make an “exhaustive review of the fundamental issues of the bilateral relationship,” says the letter shared by the Colombian Presidency.

“Venezuela, as a guarantor country (of the peace dialogue between the Petro Executive and the ELN), will support the Government of Colombia in its objective of maintaining the bilateral cessation and total peace,” reads the first of the seven points addressed during this meeting, in which the foreign ministers of both countries participated.

This announcement comes 72 hours after the Colombian government suspended the legal effects of the bilateral ceasefire decree with the ELN, after this guerrilla indicated on Tuesday that there is no agreement, and asked “a verifiable truce” to this insurgent organization.

On December 31, Petro said that the ELN and four other illegal armed groups had agreed with the government on a 6-month bilateral ceasefire, which would be in force from January 1 to June 30. However, the ELN denied having discussed any such proposal with Bogotá.

Petro arrived this Saturday at the Miraflores presidential palace, where he was received with all honors by Maduro, and left the place three hours later, fired, among others, by the representative of Venezuela for the peace dialogue between the Colombian government and the ELN, Carlos Martinez Mendoza.

Venezuela and Colombia also agreed to fully open the border for the international transport of goods and passengers, either in public service or in private vehicles, the statement said.

Petro and Maduro reviewed the “progress achieved in the opening of the border bridges between Colombia and Venezuela that have made it possible to improve the conditions of Colombian and Venezuelan citizens,” the document added.

This agreement comes six days after both governments put into operation the Atanasio Girardot binational bridge, also known as Tienditas, which connects the Colombian department of Norte de Santander with the Venezuelan state of Táchira.

They also activated last Wednesday the passage of vehicles on the José Antonio Páez international bridge, which connects the Colombian city of Arauca with the Venezuelan town of El Amparo, in Apure.

Venezuela and Colombia resumed their diplomatic relations, broken in 2019, after Petro came to power in the Andean nation, last August, a process that has advanced with the reopening of the border in September, after seven years closed to vehicular traffic, and with the reactivation of the air connection in November.