The Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism of Colombia, Germán Umaña, assured this Sunday that he envisions with hope the total reopening of the border with Venezuela, which will be done tomorrow and for which the two countries continue to fine-tune details.
At the Simón Bolívar Bridge, the main border crossing between the two countries and where the reopening ceremony will take place, Umaña said that the Government is preparing with “great faith, with great hope” for the passage of the first trucks after seven years of closure. , refers EFE.
“This is the reopening after seven years of intermittent or permanent border closures, where both the people of Táchira (Venezuela) and the people of Norte de Santander (Colombia) are going to have a wonderful reunion,” said the senior official. , who met today with local authorities to supervise the preparations.
Bogotá and Caracas simultaneously announced on September 9 the plan to reopen the 2,219-kilometer common border, and assured that the air connection, suspended since the covid-19 pandemic began, will also be resumed in March 2020.
End of trails
Umaña, who gave the statement together with the Colombian Minister of Transportation, Guillermo Reyes, assured that the normalization of transit across the border should mean the replacement “forever of the trails”, the illegal steps used by citizens of the two countries as an alternative at the closure of pedestrian crossings.
“In addition to the fact that diplomatic relations with Venezuela have already been reestablished, the ambassadors (from Colombia, Armando) Benedetti and (from Venezuela, Félix) Plasencia are already fully active, we are working on the pertinent part to reactivate the consulates,” express.
reopening act
The reopening act will take place on the Simón Bolívar Bridge at 9:00 in the morning (14:00 GMT), although Minister Umaña did not give many more details about how many trucks will pass from side to side or about what products will be marketed, since He said that this Monday everything will be known.
“The protocol acts will be held in which we and the Venezuelan authorities will be, we will give each other the pertinent greeting (…) our hymns will sound and then the tractor-trailers (trucks) will pass, which are programmed so that the border will never be closed again. », he added
