President Petro blames the far right for wanting to break the Colombia-U.S. relationship to benefit drug traffickers.
President Gustavo Petro swore in Héctor Carvajal as a Constitutional Court judge this Thursday. He was one of his nominees and served as his attorney in various cases. In the midst of a long speech, in which the president repeated several recurring themes, he mentioned the current situation with the United States.
After learning of the call for consultations from the Colombian representative in Colombia, Chargé d'Affaires John McNamara, the Colombian president asserted that there is a far-right sector interested in torpedoing relations with the country to benefit criminal organizations.
President Gustavo Petro during the inauguration of Judge Carvajal. Photo: Presidency
"They are interested in cutting off relations with the United States. They know that if relations with them are cut off, the framework we have built in the fight against organized crime will collapse," Petro said.
The Colombian president highlighted the way the United States is fighting organized crime, although he questioned the claim that they supposedly "only attack those who are against them" and even asserted that on some occasions they have even made pacts with criminal organizations that are not hostile to them.
Regarding the reasons for calling McNamara, Gustavo Petro asserted that at no point did he say that Secretary of State Marco Rubio wanted to stage a coup against him. He also indicated that former Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva met with other figures, as evidenced by the audio recordings.
President Gustavo Petro during the inauguration of Judge Carvajal. Photo: Presidency
The president also insisted that the current violence is not ideological, but economic. He again referred to the drug trafficking cabal as Colombia's greatest enemy. Along these lines, he suggested that this organization would be interested in severing relations between the two countries.
Along these lines, although he did not confirm it, he hinted that he was unable to travel to Colombia yesterday due to possible violent actions by this organization. In this regard, he reiterated his theory that this organization is responsible for the murder of Paraguayan prosecutor Marcelo Pecci.
At another point, he spoke about the exchange he had with French President Emmanuel Macron at a forum. He indicated that during that debate, he outlined his position on the need to decarbonize economies.
Juan Sebastian Lombo Delgado
eltiempo
