Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was kidnapped by the US military on January 3, 2026, since then no president has visited the country.
Recently, months after the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro became the first foreign leader to visit the country.
Petro was welcomed by Venezuela’s interim President Delsey RodrÃguez at the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas on Friday, April 24.
The couple hugged and shook hands before heading inside the palace, while their meeting was expected to be dominated by security issues, as the two countries share a 2,200-kilometre border.
Meanwhile, a crisis is looming over border security due to the meeting of Colombia’s leader with Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez.
His visit follows the sudden cancellation of a previously scheduled meeting in the Colombian border city of Cúcuta in March.
Since the border region is an important area of ​​trade, it is a major migration route as well as home to criminal drug trafficking and paramilitary groups.
Previous Colombian governments had accused former Venezuelan President Maduro of working with those criminal groups.
Those claims, in part, formed the basis of US criminal charges against the longtime leader, who has been serving Venezuela’s leader since 2013 while awaiting trial in US custody.
In contrast, Gustavo became Colombia’s first leftist leader in 2022.
He became a key ally of Maduro, with the pair agreeing to increase military presence on the border.
