Bogota: Colombia will not be provoked into armed conflict with Venezuela despite its neighbour’s aggressive rhetoric and dynamiting of two border bridges, Colombia's Defence Minister said on Friday.
"We will not be provoked. The insults bounce off us," Gabriel Silva said a day after Venezuelan troops blew up two wooden plank pedestrian bridges connecting the countries.
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez this month ordered his Army to prepare for war after Colombia signed a military cooperation pact with Washington allowing US troops greater access to its territory to run anti-narcotics surveillance flights.
Chavez says the agreement could set the stage for a US invasion of oil-rich Venezuela, a claim that Washington and Bogota dismiss. He calls Colombian President Alvaro Uribe "a traitor" to the region for signing the deal.
"I would go to war with Colombia in tears, but it is not in our hands to do it or not to do it. It's not even Colombia, it's the North American empire," Chavez said at a meeting of leftist parties on Friday.
"The Yankee empire is preparing for war in Latin America."
Chavez said the flimsy foot bridges that were destroyed had been built illegally and used by smugglers. But Colombia's Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling their destruction "an aggression against the civilian population and the frontier communities."
Bureau Report
First Published: Saturday, November 21, 2009, 11:12