Colombian Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo said his country will continue “a permanent dialogue” with the United States, despite cameras captured US National Security Adviser John Bolton’s controversial ‘5,000 troops to Colombia’ notepad scribblings earlier in the day. Trujillo was speaking from Bogota on Monday.
“Colombia will continue a permanent dialogue with the United States about all the issues of common interest, and co-operating with that friendly nation in bilateral, hemispheric and global issues,” said Trujillo.
The Colombian diplomat also reiterated the country’s position on the situation in Venezuela, voicing support for self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido as “the figure to lead the process to re-establish the institutional and democratic order in Venezuela.”
Trujillo also stated that Colombia will “keep acting politically and diplomatically” to create the conditions which would lead to an electoral process to re-establish the democratic and institutional order in Venezuela.
Earlier in the day, Bolton was filmed holding a yellow notepad allegedly containing the words ‘5,000 troops to Colombia’, at a press conference in Washington DC.
At the same briefing he and his associates announced sanctions against Venezuela’s state-owned oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA).
Several media outlets published a close up photograph of the alleged scribblings, which the White House officially denied were there.