The Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Thursday published a communiqué replying to the Colombian government's formal protest on Wednesday against President Hugo Chávez's interference with Colombian domestic affairs.

Following his mediation to seek a humanitarian swap in Colombia and his major role in the release of Colombian hostages Clara Rojas and Consuelo González, Chávez asked that the rebel Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) be removed from the list of terrorist groups.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said in the communication that the Colombian government is not committed to peace, but obsessed by the idea of defeating the insurgents militarily. "It is obsessed with war."

"Rather than using every possible effort to find a viable, lasting political solution to the armed conflict, the Colombian government is looking for any excuse to justify its militarist logic."

The communiqué claimed that President Álvaro Uribe is not committed to the humanitarian swap, but "he is blindly determined to show his war arguments."