Colombia and Uruguay sign extradition treaty in fight against crime
The president of Colombia, Iván Duque, and his Uruguayan counterpart, Luis Lacalle, signed an extradition treaty on Friday in the fight against crime, as announced by both leaders at the end of a meeting in the Caribbean Cartagena.
"Today this judicial cooperation and extradition treaty has been signed, which will allow us to continue joining forces" in the fight against "crime," declared Duque, who will hand over power on August 7 to the leftist Gustavo Petro.
After celebrating the "solid" relationship between the two countries, the conservative president highlighted the "important drug seizures" and the arrests of "drug kingpins" in Uruguay during the Lacalle administration.
For his part, the Uruguayan president applauded the "civilised" and "democratic transfer of command" by Duque to Petro, who was his greatest opponent during the last four years.
"Relations between Uruguay and Colombia will continue," predicted Lacalle, who travelled accompanied by his foreign minister, Francisco Bustillo.
At the beginning of 2020, a scandal disrupted Duque's diplomacy.
The then Colombian ambassador in Montevideo, Fernando Sanclemente, resigned from his post after the discovery of a laboratory to produce cocaine on a farm belonging to his family near Bogotá.
Sanclemente denied having knowledge of the drug factory.
