Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Peru's President Alan Garcia, left, shakes hands with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, as he delivers the hammer after minting coins to commemorate the South American Community of Nations summit in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Dec. 8, 2006 (Photo: AP)

(LIP-wb) -- As a second stop towards normalization of their bilateral relations, Peru and Venezuela have decided to resume diplomatic services in the near future by reinstating their respective ambassadors to both countries. This was announced by Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde on Monday.

The minister said the decision is the result of a reconciliation process between presidents Alan Garcia and Hugo Chávez which started last weekend during the 2nd Summit of South American Nations held at the Bolivian city of Cochabamba.

“We will definitely reinstate our ambassadors again, that is the next step. We still have to decide when but I assume it will happen sometime within the next six months. I have to discuss this with President Garcia”, he confirmed.

Peru and Venezuela withdrew their respective ambassadors as a result of a diplomatic crisis that started in April after an exchange of insults that started a verbal dirty war between Garcia and Chávez.

Belaunde welcomed the decision of both chiefs of State “to end confrontations and to turn the page”, because “a better and more active relationship will benefit both countries".

He also didn't rule out the possibility of Alan Garcia officially visiting Venezuela or that Hugo Chavez may come to Lima, but this is rather premature as of this moment.

“We're not ruling out anything but we also don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We just turned the page on both parts and now the following step is to standardize our relations. by re-sending our ambassadors. We'll see later what that leads to," he added.