CARACAS, Tuesday December 02, 2008 | Update
Former Colombian Consul in Maracaibo, Carlos Galvis, said in Bogotá that he does not regret his remarks on Venezuela (Handout Photo / Panorama newspaper)
Politics
Colombian Foreign Minister Jaime Bermúdez said that
the Colombian government has "serious concerns about a possible
wiretapping of the conversations of Colombia's diplomatic
personnel" in Venezuela, following the recalling of Carlos
Galvis, the former consul general in Maracaibo (state of Zulia).
He also said that the Colombian Ambassador to Venezuela had
lodged a verbal protest to the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Reuters reported. Shortly before, the former consul
reportedly resigned from his position, a Colombian Foreign
Ministry source said, as reported by EFE.
Bermúdez rejected the "inconvenient, ill-timed and indelicate"
terms against the government of Colombia and President Álvaro
Uribe used by the host of the TV show where the taped conversation
was broadcast.
"We took the decision to recall the consul and we expressed
our concerns about the eavesdropping of communications between
Colombian diplomats and the words used in the TV program against
our government," the Colombian Foreign Minister said.
Bermúdez said that the incident was overcome. He admitted
that the outgoing consul committed an inconvenient and inappropriate
act when he talked about Venezuela's internal affairs, EFE
reported.
10:07 AM. DIPLOMACY. Admired by the Colombian guerrilla after his coup attempt in 1992, the then lieutenant colonel Hugo Chávez Frías received financial support by the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) for his projects after his capture that year. This mostly explains the relationship and "debt" between the parties, as revealed by a paper of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) of the United Kingdom.