Quito - South American foreign ministers have failed to heal a rift between
Colombia and Venezuela, officials said Thursday.
The meeting of the 12-member Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) brought representatives of the two neighbours together for the first time since Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez cut relations last week with Bogota.
Colombia accuses
Venezuela of harbouring some 1,500 leftist Colombian guerillas on its territory.
"It was not possible to draw up an official document with everyone's agreement," Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said after a five-hour meeting in the country's capital, Quito. However, officials agreed that armed illegal groups in the border region posed a problem, he added.
Patino called for an extraordinary UNASUR summit of heads of state to solve the crisis.
Analysts doubt that the conflict can be resolved before Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe leaves office next week and hands over power to president-elect Juan Manuel Santos.
