Colombian President Petro suggests Qatar could mediate US military actions off Venezuela

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BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian President Gustavo Petro proposed Thursday that Qatar could serve as “mediator” so that the United States would end its military deployment in international waters off the coast of Venezuela, where it has attacked small boats it says were carrying drugs.

Petro's comments while on a trip to Brussels came a day after he said, without offering evidence, that Colombians may have been aboard the last boat the U.S. military destroyed in the Caribbean. The Trump administration has reported sinking four small boats allegedly carrying drugs.

Petro noted that Qatar is a proven mediator in tense situations, so would probably be successful in getting the United States to “cease the aggression with missiles” in the Caribbean Sea.

Qatar’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the proposal.

The U.S. disputed Petro’s comments about Colombians being aboard the boat and wants him to publicly retract them, according to a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Petro later said he would not retract the comments and had based them on Colombia's own data about drug seizures in the Caribbean and the nationalities of those captured.

Regarding the suggestion of involving Qatar, the official said that despite policy differences, the U.S. considers Colombia an essential strategic partner and the U.S. remains committed to close cooperation with Colombia on shared priorities.

Last Friday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the strike on a small boat he accused of carrying drugs in the waters off Venezuela. He said the strike killed four men but offered no details on who they were or what group they belonged to.

U.S. President Donald Trump has told U.S. lawmakers he was treating drug traffickers as unlawful combatants and military force was required to combat them.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has said repeatedly that his country is not a major drug trafficking player. The Venezuelan leader did his own outreach, sending a letter to Pope Leo XIV asking him to help keep the peace in his country.

Petro has called the U.S. use of force on the boats “disproportionate” and the deaths as “murder,” insisting that drug interdiction can be carried out with captures rather than killings.

Colombia’s leader says that if the goal is really to stop drug trafficking the way to do it is to negotiate the dismantling of drug trafficking organizations. His administration finished its first round of negotiations with one of those organizations, the Clan del Golfo, in Qatar in September. On Thursday, he suggested Qatar could mediate with another group, the Sierra Nevada Self-Defense Forces.

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AP journalist Michelle Price in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america