The announcement came after President Petro said Colombia would stop working with the US on attacks on alleged drug boats.
Colombian officials said the country would continue to share intelligence with international organizations fighting drug trafficking, days after President Gustavo Petro said he was suspending such cooperation with the United States. Attacks on ships in international waters.
Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez said in a social media post on Thursday that Petro had given “clear instructions” to maintain an “uninterrupted flow of information” with international agencies working on drug trafficking.
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“Against transnational crime, the answer is international cooperation,” Sanchez wrote on x.
The country’s interior minister, Armando Benedetti, also said in a separate statement that there had been a “misunderstanding” and that Petro had never said that US security agencies would stop working with their Colombian counterparts in Colombia.
“We will continue to work as this administration has done with the United States against drug trafficking and crime,” Benedetti said on social media.
Petro – a left-wing leader and vocal critic of US President Donald Trump – has since come up with a clear face. said on Tuesday The order was issued to “suspend communications and other dealings with US security agencies”.
Petro has criticized the Trump administration’s series of deadly attacks on boats in the Caribbean that it accuses of smuggling illegal drugs.
The strike has been widely condemned United Nations officials And other experts say they are in clear violation of international law.
“These attacks – and their increasing human cost – are unacceptable,” Volker Turk, the UN human rights chief, said in late October.
“The United States must stop such attacks and take all necessary measures to prevent the extrajudicial killings of people on these boats, regardless of the criminal charges against them.”
The Trump administration has Criticism rejectedIts raids in the Caribbean and Pacific are aimed at intercepting drug traffickers. At least 76 people have been killed so far in the US bombing campaign that began in September.
Trump has also accused Petro of involvement in drug trafficking without providing any evidence. impose restrictions On the President of Colombia and his family last month.
The Colombian leader has called for Trump to be investigated for war crimes related to attacks that affected civilians in Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago.
Petro has also accused Washington of going after Washington Coca farmersInstead of targeting major drug traffickers and money launderers, the base ingredient of cocaine.
On Sunday, Petro said he met with the family of a Colombian fisherman who was allegedly killed in a US attack.
“He may have been carrying fish or he may have been carrying cocaine, but he was not sentenced to death,” Petro said during a summit between Latin American and European leaders hosted by Colombia. “He didn’t need to be killed.”
US news outlet CNN reported earlier this week that the United Kingdom had suspended some intelligence sharing with the US about attacks on yachts in the Caribbean.
But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed the report. Without going into any detail or explaining what was wrong with CNN’s reporting, Rubio told reporters Wednesday that the story was “fake.”