BOGOTA.- President Gustavo Petro appointed on Tuesday the until now ambassador of Colombia in USA, Luis Gilberto Murilloas the new chancellor, after the removal of his predecessor due to a trial for alleged corruption.
Murillo will be succeeded in Washington by Daniel García-Peña, an experienced diplomat and academic who has served as a professor at prominent Colombian universities, including the National and the Andes. Additionally, he is a historian at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina.
Petro entrusted the new ambassador to the United States with the task of shaping a renewed bilateral agenda, focused primarily on the fight against climate change rather than drug trafficking.
“It is a new agenda that moves away from the failed policy of war on drugs, which has led to violence. Now we focus on issues that promote life and humanity itself,” highlighted the Colombian president.
Likewise, he expressed his commitment to profoundly transform the anti-drug strategy, seeking to avoid the persecution of peasant farmers and direct intelligence efforts towards major drug traffickers and money laundering. He also aims to promote voluntary substitution of illicit crops and reduce forced eradication.
Murillo will assume the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to replace Alvaro Leyvawho was removed from his position in January by the Attorney General’s Office due to alleged irregularities in the bidding process for the printing of passports in Colombia, with a budget close to 150 million dollars.
Source: With information from AFP
