Buenos Aires, March 28, (dpa/GNA) – The Colombian Foreign Ministry has ordered the expulsion of Argentinian diplomats, after Argentinian President Javier Milei, called his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro a “terrorist killer.”
“The statements made by the Argentinian President have violated the trust and dignity of the democratically elected President Petro,” it said on Wednesday in a statement, referring to a recent Mieli interview on CNN En Español’s Oppenheimer Presenta programme.
“This is not the first time that Mr. Milei has offended the Colombian President, affecting the historical brotherly relations between Colombia and Argentina,” said the Foreign Ministry in Bogotá.
The Argentine embassy will be informed via diplomatic channels of the specific individuals affected by the expulsion, the Colombian ministry continued.
“Mr Petro, well, you can’t expect much from someone who was a terrorist killer, a Communist,” Milei told Andrés Oppenheimer in a wide-ranging interview on CNN En Español.
At age 17, Petro joined the now extinct Marxist guerrilla movement M-19 and served an 18-month prison sentence for illegal arms possession in the mid-1980s.
The president has denied involvement in M-19’s occupation of the Palace of Justice in 1985. During the siege and the subsequent storming of the building by the military, some 55 civilians were killed along with 35 rebels, while a dozen more people disappeared.
After M-19 was demobilized by 1990, Petro helped to found the political party that replaced the guerrilla group. He also participated in drafting the country’s constitution in 1991.
Right-wing libertarian economist Javier Milei, took office as president of Argentina in December.
GNA