CARACAS, Venezuela (AP):
VENEZUELA'S VICE-PRESIDENT says differences with Peru have been cleared up after the country recalled its ambassador in a diplomatic spat sparked by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez's praise of a Peruvian presidential candidate.
Peruvian Foreign Minister Oscar Maurtua said last week that Chavez's praise for the nationalist candidate Ollanta Humala constituted "interference in the internal affairs" of Peru. But Peru's government later announced it did not expect relations between the two South American nations to be strained.
Venezuelan Vice-President José Vicente Rangel said Sunday that the concerns raised over the visit of Humala to Caracas last week have been addressed and the issue resolved, the state-run Bolivarian News Agency reported.
SMALL QUARREL
The matter that "brought up the small quarrel did not have a reason for being," Rangel was quoted as saying. "It was sufficiently cleared up."
Chavez, a socialist with close ties to Cuban President Fidel Castro, appeared with Humala and Bolivian President-elect Evo Morales at an event in Caracas last week. Chavez, a fierce critic of the U.S. government, applauded Humala for opposing a U.S.-backed free trade proposal.
Humala, a retired lieutenant colonel, recently has surged in polls ahead of next April's presidential vote in Peru. In October 2000, he led a short-lived military uprising of 50 men against former President Alberto Fujimori a month before his 10-year government collapsed amid charges of corruption and human rights violations.
