Venezuela: The link between Columbia and NATO could rise a risk to the Latin American peace

World News Adina Camarasu
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Venezuela warned that a possible agreement between Colombia and NATO could raise a risk to the peace in Latin America, reported Xinhua on Tuesday.

‘The Venezuelan government strongly opposes the attempt to introduce external factors with nuclear capacity in our region’, said the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday in an official statement.

Regarding the Caracas Government’s point of view, ‘past and recent NATO’s actions are related to a policy of war and violation of several bilateral and regional agreements to which Colombia was part and through which the Latin America and the Caribbean were declared areas of peace’.

As a member of some key regional blocs, including the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Community of South American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Colombia must respect these agreements.

Xinhua stated that Venezuela’s warning came after the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, announced last Friday that NATO has accepted the deployment of preliminary talks with the government in Bogota on a cooperation agreement that would eventually lead to a membership with full rights of organization.

Venezuela also considers that the request ‘undermines the Non-Aligned Movement, which expressly prohibited its member states from joining the military alliance’, says Venezuela.

This decision might affect again the diplomatic relations between Colombia and Venezuela as it already happened several times in the past few years.

In August 2015, the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has closed the border with Colombia, between San Antonio del Tachira and Urena after an ambush in which three Venezuelan soldiers and one civilian were hurt.

Since then, the bridge that separates the Colombian city Cucuta from Urena was supervised non-stop by the National Guard.

Earlier in December, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro closed the border with Colombia for 72 hours, motivating that the Colombian mafia groups operating in the border areas were causing major damage to the economy.