Two ministers from the administration of Gustavo Petro, president of Colombia, contradicted this Thursday (13) a statement by the president himself that Bogotá would cut intelligence cooperation with the United States due to the military operation that Washington is carrying out against vessels allegedly linked to drug trafficking in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
On Tuesday (11), Petro made the announcement on
However, this Thursday, Pedro Arnulfo Sanchez, Minister of Defense, and Armando Benedetti, holder of the Interior portfolio, stated on the same social network that cooperation with the United States continues.
“President Gustavo Petro gave clear instructions to maintain, as has been done, a continuous flow of information with international agencies to combat drug trafficking, always guaranteeing respect for human rights and strict observance of the protocols of understanding agreements and international treaties,” said Sanchez.
Benedetti claimed that “there was a misinterpretation on the part of the Colombian press and some senior government officials”.
“President Gustavo Petro never stated that the American control agencies, FBI, DEA [Administração de Repressão às Drogas, na sigla em inglês] Well yes [Setor de Investigação do Departamento de Segurança Interna]would no longer operate in Colombia together with our intelligence agencies, Dipol [Diretoria de Inteligência Policial]Live [Direção de Investigação Criminal e Interpol] e CTI [Corpo Técnico de Investigação]. We will continue to work with the United States, as this government has done, in the fight against drug trafficking and crime”, said the Minister of the Interior.
In October, United States President Donald Trump suspended all financial aid to Colombia after Petro questioned the American operation and the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) imposed economic sanctions on the Colombian president, his wife, Veronica del Socorro Alcocer Garcia, his eldest son and Benedetti.
The Trump administration ministry claimed it took the action because Petro allowed drug cartels to “flourish” and “refused to stop their activities.”
In September, the US State Department had already canceled Petro’s visa after he participated in a pro-Palestine protest in New York in which he “urged American soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence”, according to the Trump administration’s ministry.
