\n<\/p>\n
EXCLUSIVE<\/span><\/p>\n Speaking to Al Jazeera, Gustavo Petro calls for \u2018shared government through dialogue\u2019 in Venezuela, leading to elections.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Colombia\u2019s President Gustavo Petro has stressed the importance of having open lines of communication with the United States despite President Donald Trump\u2019s recent threats of military action against the South American country.<\/p>\n In an interview with Al Jazeera\u2019s Teresa Bo in Colombia\u2019s capital, Bogota \u2013 which aired on Friday \u2013 Petro said his government is seeking to maintain cooperation on combating narcotics with Washington, striking a softer tone following days of escalating rhetoric.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n His comments came after holding a phone call with Trump on Wednesday, a direct contact that Petro called a \u201cmeans of communication that did not exist before\u201d.<\/p>\n Petro, Colombia\u2019s first left-wing president, said that previously, information between the two governments had been transmitted through unofficial channels \u201cmediated by political ideology and my opposition\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI have been careful \u2013 despite the insults, the threats and so on \u2013 to maintain cooperation on drug trafficking between Colombia and the United States,\u201d Petro said.<\/p>\n Just hours after the US military abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday, Trump turned his threats of military action towards Colombia.<\/p>\n Trump accused Petro \u2013 without evidence \u2013 of running cocaine mills, calling him a \u201csick man\u201d.<\/p>\n Asked on Sunday whether he would authorise a military operation against Petro, Trump said, \u201cSounds good to me.\u201d<\/p>\n In response, Petro promised to defend his country, saying that he would \u201ctake up arms\u201d for his homeland.<\/p>\n While temperatures have cooled in the wake of the call between the two leaders on Wednesday, observers have largely seen Trump\u2019s threats as the potential next step in the White House\u2019s stated goal of establishing US \u201cpre-eminence\u201d in the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n But the feud between the Trump administration and Petro pre-dated the attack on Venezuela.<\/p>\n The Colombian president has been a vocal critic of Israel\u2019s US-backed genocidal war on Gaza.<\/p>\n In September, Washington revoked Petro\u2019s US visa after he spoke at a pro-Palestine march outside the United Nations General Assembly in New York.<\/p>\n Weeks later, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the Colombian president, who is term-limited and set to leave office after a presidential election in May.<\/p>\n Petro was among the first world leaders to condemn the abduction of Maduro, calling the US raid an \u201cattack on the sovereignty of Venezuela and Latin America\u201d.<\/p>\n In his interview with Al Jazeera, Petro warned that Venezuela, which borders his country, could fall into violence in the post-Maduro era. He said that \u201cwould be a disaster\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cTo that extent, what I have proposed is a shared government through dialogue among all the political forces in Venezuela and a series of steps towards elections,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Petro added that he has spoken to Venezuela\u2019s interim President Delcy Rodriguez, and he sensed she is worried about the future of the country.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s also facing attacks,\u201d the Colombian president said. \u201cSome accuse her of betrayal, and that is constructed as a narrative that divides the forces that were part of the Maduro government.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n EXCLUSIVE Speaking to Al Jazeera, Gustavo Petro calls for \u2018shared government through dialogue\u2019 in Venezuela, leading to elections. Colombia\u2019s President Gustavo Petro has stressed the importance of having open lines of communication with the United States despite President Donald Trump\u2019s recent threats of military action against the South American country. In an interview with Al […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
US threats<\/h2>\n
\u2018Shared government through dialogue\u2019<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"