This footage was filmed and produced 9 April 2024.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for "political peace in Venezuela" after a meeting in Caracas with his counterpart Nicolas Maduro. The visit comes at a time of tension, after Petro called the disqualification of the Chavista leader's main rival an "anti-democratic coup".

"Political peace in Venezuela can also be armed peace in Colombia and in that there is a lot of ground to be built quickly, urgently," Petro said in a statement to the press at the Miraflores presidential palace, accompanied by Maduro.

"I thank President Gustavo Petro for this good meeting we have had," said Maduro, who is seeking re-election in the elections for a third six-year term. Maduro explained that the meeting "reviewed" the bilateral relationship and discussed possible "opportunities" in "all fields: transport, trade, economy and alternative energies". He did not go into details.

On 1 April, Petro had described as an "anti-democratic coup" the administrative sanctions that prevent opponents, including former deputy Maria Corina Machado, a favourite in the polls, from being candidates in the presidential elections on 28 July. It was an unprecedented questioning of Maduro, of whom Petro has been a strong ally.

SOUNDBITE: Spanish, Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela:
"I thank President Gustavo Petro for this good meeting we have had, a good conversation with our work teams, a good conversation also in private, reviewing how the relationship between Venezuela and Colombia is evolving, progressing, and the new opportunities that are opening up in all fields."

SOUNDBITE: Spanish, Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia:
"A common agenda around concrete projects of union or Latin American integration that here pass, for example, through the navigability of the Meta River, Orinoco River, the sea, the articulation of the North-Andean, Santander-Andean economy, with Lake Maracaibo and therefore the exit to the sea in a much faster way."