The announcement came after President Petro said Colombia would suspend cooperation with the United States over attacks on suspected drug smuggling ships.
Days after President Gustavo Petro announced a suspension of cooperation with the United States over attacks on ships in international waters, Colombian officials said they would continue sharing information with international organizations fighting drug trafficking.
Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez said in a social media post on Thursday that Petro had given “clear instructions” to maintain a “continuous flow of information” with international organizations tackling drug trafficking.
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“The answer to transnational crime is international cooperation,” Sanchez wrote of X.
The country’s Interior Minister Armando Benedetti also said in a separate statement that there had been a “misunderstanding” and that President Petro never said that U.S. security services would cease operations in Colombia alongside Colombian security services.
“We will continue to work as our government has with the United States against drug trafficking and crime,” Benedetti said on social media.
The apparent about-face came after Petro, a left-wing leader and vocal critic of US President Donald Trump, announced on Tuesday that it had been ordered to “cease communications and other transactions with US security agencies.”
Petro has criticized a series of deadly U.S. attacks on boats in the Caribbean that the Trump administration blamed on illegal drug smuggling.
The airstrike has sparked widespread condemnation, with U.N. officials and other experts saying it was a clear violation of international law.
“These attacks and their growing human toll are unacceptable,” U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk said in late October.
“The United States must stop these attacks and take all necessary steps to prevent the extrajudicial killings of those aboard these boats, regardless of the alleged criminal activity.”
The Trump administration has rejected criticism, saying the attacks in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean were aimed at deterring drug traffickers. The US bombing campaign, which began in September, has so far killed at least 76 people.
President Trump has accused Petro, without providing evidence, of involvement in drug trafficking and imposed sanctions on Colombia’s president and his family last month.
The Colombian leader, in turn, called on President Trump to investigate war crimes related to the attack, which affected people in Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Petro also accused Washington of going after farmers who grow coca, the basic ingredient in cocaine, rather than targeting big drug traffickers and money launderers.
Petro said Sunday he met with the family of a Colombian fisherman who was said to have died in the U.S. attack.
“He may have been transporting fish, or he may have been transporting cocaine, but he has not received a death sentence,” Petro said at a meeting of Latin American and European leaders hosted by Colombia. “There was no need to kill him.”
US news outlet CNN reported earlier this week that Britain had suspended some intelligence sharing with the US over attacks on ships in the Caribbean.
However, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejected the report. Rubio told reporters Wednesday that the CNN report was a “fabrication,” without specifying what was inaccurate about it.
