{"id":988370,"date":"2026-08-08T06:11:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T06:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/988370\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T06:11:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T06:11:22","slug":"saar-meets-with-colombian-vp-restrepo-as-israel-colombia-strengthen-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/988370\/","title":{"rendered":"Sa&#8217;ar meets with Colombian VP Restrepo as Israel, Colombia strengthen ties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/article-904724\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Colombia<\/a> and Israel are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/article-902698\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">restoring ties<\/a> ahead of Friday\u2019s inauguration ceremony of new Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella, with senior Colombian officials expressing strong support for Israel and intent to expand cooperation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar arrived in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/politics-and-diplomacy\/article-902939\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Colombia<\/a> for the inaugural ceremony and met with Colombian Vice President Jos\u00e9 Manuel Restrepo, Foreign Minister Omar Bula Escobar, and other senior ministers from the newly appointed government.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">The officials in attendance included the new foreign minister, as well as ministers of defense, finance, justice, trade and industry, and environment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Practical opportunities to deepen cooperation across a range of fields were discussed with the intent to translate the renewed diplomatic relationship into concrete partnerships.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Ties between the two countries had been severed by former Colombian President Gustavo Petro in 2024 after he accused Israel of \u201cgenocide\u201d during its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>During his tenure, Petro also linked Israel to &#8220;Nazi&#8221; tactics in Latin America, restricted previously robust <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/business-and-innovation\/article-904301\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">defense partnerships<\/a>, and imposed a complete ban on Colombian coal exports to Israel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Sa\u2019ar thanked his hosts for their warm welcome and friendship, saying, \u201cNot only will we rebuild our ties, but we will take them to new heights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">\u201cYou designated 2026 as a year for expanding its ties with Latin America,\u201d Restrepo said. &#8220;You have reinstated the free trade agreement, strengthened diplomatic relations, made the decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem, and from this point forward, we are committed to maximizing the benefits of this relationship.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">\u201cFor Colombia, 2026 will be marked by the deepening and strengthening of its relationship with the State of Israel,\u201d Restrepo concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colombia and Israel are restoring ties ahead of Friday\u2019s inauguration ceremony of new Colombian President Abelardo de la&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":988371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[342955,12575,7838,28463,99,50],"class_list":["post-988370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-abelardo-de-la-espriella","tag-colombia","tag-diplomacy","tag-gideon-saar","tag-israel","tag-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117058409813170084","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=988370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/988371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=988370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=988370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=988370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}