Colombia, October 07: Colombia’s US-backed President Alvaro Uribe asks Ecuador to act firmly against the ‘drug-running’ guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) based on the Ecuadorian soil.
Uribe told Ecuador’s leftist President Rafael Correa on Tuesday that his government has evidence that the Colombian Marxist rebels have set up camps there and that he should take ‘concrete’ action against them.
Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva, echoing his president’s remarks, told reporters on Tuesday that he will provide ‘precise information’ to Ecuador about camps FARC has established in Colombia’s southern neighbor.
Ecuador has also said recently that it will not tolerate the presence of illegal armed groups, Silva added.
The two countries are discussing re-establishing diplomatic ties severed last year after Colombia’s conservative president ordered the bombing of a FARC rebel camp on the Ecuadorian side of the border.
FARC has conducted a guerilla campaign in Colombia for about 40 years in pursuit of its Marxist objectives.
—–Agencies