Amid new tensions with Venezuela, Colombia announced this Friday that it carried out military exercises in the Caribbean Sea with France, the second NATO country along with the United States, with which it carries out this type of maneuver in a week.
The Colombian Navy reported in a statement that “in the framework of the international cooperation agreements between Colombia and France” its units and those of the “National Navy of that country carried out training exercises in Colombian Caribbean waters.”
Also read: Inside a fake belly, a woman tried to take cocaine out of the Barranquilla airport
During the action “tactical maneuvers, interdiction exercises, emergency support on the high seas, among others, were carried out, testing the capabilities of the warship and the logistics ship,” the text adds.
On Monday, the Colombian Defense Minister reported that the United States Army and Marine Corps carried out military exercises some 130 kilometers from Cartagena, which included a nuclear submarine for the first time, to fight drug trafficking and protect “national sovereignty.”
The operations of Colombia, the only Latin American country that is a strategic partner of NATO, take place in the midst of tensions with Venezuela, an ally of Russia in the region.
Also read: From March 10 there will be closure of borders in the country ahead of the elections
Since the beginning of March, the Colombian government has questioned an alleged attempt at Russian interference in its country by supporting Venezuelan troops on the common border, accusations that Moscow rejected.
Bogotá, a close ally of Washington in the West, is critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
US nuclear submarine exercise
Admiral Gabriel Pérez, commander of the National Navy, spoke in relation to the presence in national waters of a United States nuclear submarine and assured that defense exercises were carried out with it that do not generate risk.
The Admiral explained that the military exercises carried out with this submarine have nothing to do with the conflict between the Russians and the Ukrainians. Thus clarifying what was stated by Venezuela, an ally of Russia in the region, which rejected the navigability of the ‘USS Minnesota’
in the waters of Cartagena.
“These exercises are activities that are regularly carried out by navies around the world to check the level of readiness of their equipment or personnel, of the means they have to face any circumstance. The exercise took place during the weekend and the beginning of It is in the Colombian Caribbean area,” the Admiral explained in dialogue with Blu Radio.
Likewise, the Admiral referred to the rejection of these activities that came from Venezuelan territory from where the Minister of Defense, General Vladimir Padrino, “categorically” rejected the Colombian-American exercises, describing them as “imperialist ostentation.”
In this regard, Admiral Pérez was emphatic that “the appreciation (of Venezuela) is disproportionate in every sense. We have a history and a tradition of training and collaboration with the United States for many years.”
