(MENAFN- The Peninsula) AFP
Caracas: Colombia's President Gustavo Petro traveled to Venezuela on Saturday to meet his counterpart Nicolas Maduro, their second face-to-face after a years-long diplomatic freeze.
The trip came just days after the final reopening of the South American neighbors' shared border, closed in a spat over Maduro's disputed 2018 reelection.
Colombia's first-ever leftist president arrived in Caracas around lunchtime on Saturday, according to the country's ambassador in Venezuela Armando Benedetti.
He would be received by Maduro at the presidential palace for a meeting whose purpose Benedetti described as 'continuing to work for a shared agenda between two sister nations.'
It is the leaders' second meeting since Petro took power from Ivan Duque last August and the official resumption of diplomatic ties a month later.
Petro also visited Maduro on November 1, when he called for Venezuela to be brought back into a regional trade alliance and human rights system.
Venezuela severed diplomatic relations with its neighbor in 2019 after increasingly strained ties with Petro's predecessors Juan Manuel Santos and conservative Duque -- who Maduro accused of orchestrating plans to assassinate him.
The final straw came when Duque backed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido -- recognized by dozens of countries as the victor in 2018 elections claimed by Maduro.
Reestablishing ties with Venezuela was one of Petro's first moves as president.
On January 2, the countries reopened the last stretch of their shared 2,200-kilometer (1,350-mile) border partially closed seven years ago and then completely blocked in 2019.
The meeting also comes just days after Petro announced a ceasefire agreement with Colombia's last recognized guerrilla group, the ELN, only to have the combatants deny any such deal existed.
Venezuela is a guarantor of ongoing negotiations between the Colombian government and ELN in Petro's quest for 'total peace' in a country that has seen decades of civil conflict.
Petro will on Monday meet another fellow leftist leader, Chile's Gabriel Boric, on a visit to that country.
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