Nicolas Maduro Calls On The Colombian Army To Join Forces With Venezuela 'So No One Dares To Touch Our Sovereignty'

Venezuela's authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro called on the Colombian army to join forces with his country's counterparts as the U.S. continues ramping up pressure on the regime.

In a televised address, Maduro said the "best guarantee we have for peace and stability in this world is unity." Therefore, he said, he was calling on the "Colombian people, its social movements, political forces, its military, to for a perfect union with Venezuela so no one dares to touch our sovereignty."

The call is similar to one made in November by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who is also going through tensions with the Trump administration.

Concretely, he floated the idea of uniting several South American nations to revive Gran Colombia, the 19th-century republic that once encompassed modern-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama, claiming that he United States' military campaign in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific is undermining regional sovereignty.

Speaking in Santa Marta, where independence hero Simón Bolívar died, Petro invoked the memory of the liberator to call for unity among South American nations as a way to resist what he called U.S. aggression.

He later reaffirmed his message in a post on X, writing, "I propose to the peoples who inhabit this territory demarcated in 1819 that, through constituent power and agreements among governments, we reconstruct Bolívar's idea of a Great Colombia — a confederation of sovereign nations with a common parliament and a shared presidency, similar to the European Union."

Despite Petro's repeated references to Gran Colombia, Interior Minister Armando Benedetti later told the Miami Herald that the president's comments were "symbolic."

Moreover, relations between Petro and Maduro are seemingly rocky at the moment, considering that the former called the latter a dictator for the first time this week.

In a social media post, Petro said Maduro is a dictator for concentrating power in Venezuela. Despite that characterization, the Colombian president defended Maduro by saying he is not a drug trafficker, arguing there is no evidence in Colombia linking him to organized crime, as the Trump administration claims.

"Maduro is a dictator for concentrating power," Petro wrote on X. "There is no evidence in Colombia that he is a narco. That is a narrative from the U.S."