Venezuela severs relations with Colombia over rebel's capture

President Hugo Chavez said diplomatic and commercial relations with Colombia would be suspended until the country apologised for paying bounty hunters to snatch a senior rebel from Venezuela.

Chavez said he ordered all commercial agreements with neighbouring Colombia - Venezuela’s second largest trade partner – to be suspended until the diplomatic row was resolved.

"With much pain I have recalled the ambassador in Bogota and he will not return until the Colombian government offers us apologies,” Chavez said during a speech to the National Assembly. “I’ve ordered all agreements and business with Colombia to be paralysed.”

Chavez said the move included the suspension of plans to build a €157m natural gas pipeline from Venezuela to Colombia’s Pacific coast, which would allow Venezuelan fuel to be more easily shipped to Asia and the US west coast.

But Colombian president Alvaro Uribe last night defended his country’s “right to free itself from the nightmare of terrorism” and offered no apologies.

“The Colombian police has explained clearly and forcefully that it has not violated Venezuela’s sovereignty,” Uribe said in a statement from his office.

Uribe called the use of bounty hunters a “legitimate instrument” to fight terrorism. He also reiterated Colombia’s desire to have good relations with Venezuela.

Venezuelan officials called the December 13 capture of Colombian rebel Rodrigo Granda in Caracas a violation of sovereignty. Granda is a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, overseeing its international relations.