Bogotá (EFE).- Colombian President Gustavo Petra assured this Sunday that the “Venezuelan government” took away the right to elect and be elected from opposition leader Maria Karina Machado, and again defended his decision to maintain diplomatic status with Chavista leader Nicolás Maduro.
“We will maintain diplomatic relations not because we legitimized an election that was not free from the beginning, when the agreement to lift economic sanctions was broken so that people could vote freely, then the response of the Venezuelan government and the subsequent deprivation of the right to vote. choose and be chosen Maria Karina,” said Petro in a wide-ranging message on X.
The president insisted that his government would seek “democratic dialogue in Colombia and Venezuela” as well as “respect for the people.”
Petro defends Machado’s rights
“We condemn the violation of their fundamental rights whether in Colombia or Venezuela or anywhere in the world,” said Petro, who added that “diplomatic relations are meant for people to unite and not suffer from the differences of their governments.” .
On Friday, Nicolás Maduro was sworn in as Venezuela’s president for the period between 2025 and 2031 by the Chavismo-controlled National Assembly (AN, parliament), despite the majority of the opposition claiming that Edmundo González Urrutia was the winner elections. last July.

The position of Piotr’s government, which ensures that there are no free elections in Venezuela and has not yet recognized Maduro as president, is to maintain relations with the neighboring country precisely because of the impact on the border.
“They never cease to thirst for blood”
In his message, Petro once again referred to the idea of international intervention to remove Maduro from power in Venezuela, proposed by former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe between 2002 and 2010.
Uribe, who ruled the Andean country from 2002 to 2010, spoke about the proposed international intervention this Saturday in Cucuta, the city that has Colombia’s main border crossing with Venezuela, after Maduro’s inauguration on Friday.
“We are asking for international intervention, preferably with the support of the United Nations, to remove these tyrants from power and call free elections immediately,” Uribe said.

The biggest stupidity in history
In this sense, Pietro replied that Uribe and his party, the Democratic Center, want “Colombian and Venezuelan youth to kill each other, and Venezuelan and Colombian mothers to cry for their dead children.”
“I must say clearly that if one day young Colombians and Venezuelans killed each other in war, we would have committed the greatest stupidity in history. The sign of blood and revenge will mark us for generations,” the president added.
Peter also asked again to lift the blockade of Venezuela.
“An economic blockade by one country against another is abhorrent, and what’s worse is a military invasion like many we’ve seen in the 21st century,” he said.