Petro announces that Colombia will rejoin Unasur after almost five years of withdrawing

President Colombian, Gustavo Petroannounced on Tuesday that his country will rejoin the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) from which he withdrew in 2018 during the government of his predecessor, ivan duke (2018-2022).

“I have decided to reintegrate the country into the Unasurratifying the treaty approved by Congress through law and I have requested that it be called Association of South American Nations to guarantee pluralism and permanence over time”, said the president on his Twitter account.

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Colombia had withdrawn from that union on August 10, 2018, just three days after the start of Duque’s term, who considered that body to be “accomplice of the Venezuelan dictatorship”.

Petro’s decision is known just during his participation in a regional summit in Brasilia summoned by the Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silvawhich resulted in a firm commitment to integration.

In addition to Petro, the summit was attended by the presidents of Argentina, Alberto Fernandez; bolivian, Luis Arce; Chili, gabriel boric; Ecuador, William Lasso; guyana, irfaan ali; Paraguayan, Mario Abdo Benitez; Surinam, chan santokhi; Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pouand Venezuela, Nicolas Madurowhile Peru was represented by the President of the Council of Ministers, Alberto Otárola.

Departure from Unasur

When he announced the decision to withdraw Colombia of Unasur, Duque pointed out that the block, formed in Brazil in 2008, it was created “to fracture the inter-American system” and added that this served as “wildcard” for “the purposes of a dictatorship”.

Duque then stated that Unasur “never” denounced the “outrages“of the Government of Maduro and that neither”exercised” your duty to ensure that such actions do not “constitute the elimination of the liberties of the citizenry”, reason why he considers it the “greatest accomplice of the dictatorship of Venezuela”.

For this reason, a year later, together with the then president of Chile, he created sebastian pinerahe Forum for the Progress of South America (Prosur), which sought to replace Unasur.

Unasur crisis

Unasur entered into a crisis in 2017 when the twelve member countries could not agree on a new secretary general, a situation that was aggravated by the conflicting positions on the Venezuelan crisis.

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Between 2018 and 2020, various Latin American States, including Argentina and Brazil, governed at the time by presidents aligned to the right, decided to leave the bloc, assuring that it was ideologized, for which reason Unasur, in which they only remained guyana, Surinam, bolivianVenezuela and Peruwas disabled in practice.

This year, Argentina and Brazil announced their return to the body and in early April, the authorities of both nations met in Buenos Aires to address the challenges to reactivate Unasur.

Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.