US Vice President Joe Biden said Monday that US support for Colombia’s peace process with Marxist rebels remained solid, after talks in Bogota with President Juan Manuel Santos.
“I made it clear to President Santos that the United States strongly supports his efforts to achieve historic peace with the FARC,” Biden told reporters. “Just as we supported Colombia’s leaders on the battlefield, we fully support you at the negotiating table, Mr President.”
US support has been anything but minor: since 2000, Washington has poured more than $8 billion into military aid, training and technology to try to help Bogota stamp out Latin America’s longest-running insurgency.
Colombia, Washington’s closest ally in South America, has a free trade deal with the United States as well.
Biden arrived in Colombia on Sunday at the start of a six-day tour that will also take him to the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, and Brazil.
The visit — Biden’s fourth to the region since becoming vice president in January 2009 — will see him discuss bilateral, regional and global issues with key leaders.
It also comes just days before Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to travel to Mexico, Costa Rica and Trinidad and Tobago on his way to a summit with US President Barack Obama on June 7-8 in Rancho Mirage, California.
Biden landed in Bogota just hours after the government and leftist FARC rebels announced they had reached a deal on land reform, one of the most contentious items in negotiations aimed at ending five decades of insurgency.
In Trinidad and Tobago, Biden will meet with Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and talk with other Caribbean leaders about energy, economic integration and citizen security, the White House said.
On Wednesday, Biden will deliver a speech in Rio de Janeiro showcasing Brazil as a strategic US partner, and meet with Brazilian business and community leaders.
Those meetings will include a tour of a site managed by the semi-public Brazilian oil giant Petrobras.
Biden will also meet with President Dilma Rousseff and Brazil’s vice president to “discuss ways to deepen our economic and commercial partnership,” the White House has said.
In Bogota, Biden backs Colombia peace process
