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Colombia, Venezuela expected to renew ties
Colombia and Venezuela were expected to renew ties as their leaders prepared to meet Tuesday to try to defuse a diplomatic crisis over accusations that Venezuela is harboring Colombian guerrillas.
Colombia's new President Juan Manuel Santos moved swiftly after his inauguration on Saturday to seek to end the simmering dispute between the two neighbors.
He was to meet his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez in Santa Marta, Colombia, on Tuesday, at the site where South American independence hero Simon Bolivar died in 1830.
A Brazilian presidential spokesman said late Monday that the two leaders were expected to reestablish ties "in the coming hours."
Tuesday's meeting is to try to reestablish trade and diplomatic links broken by Chavez on July 22, after the former Colombian government of Alvaro Uribe claimed that some 1,500 guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and National Liberation Army were operating in Venezuela.