Venezuela and Colombia restored full diplomatic relations Sunday after a three-year break, as a new leftist government in Bogota takes shape.

A new Colombian ambassador, Armando Benedetti, arrived in Caracas and said on Twitter, "Relations with Venezuela should never have been severed. We are brothers and an imaginary line cannot separate us."

He was welcomed by deputy foreign minister Rander Pena Ramirez.

Colombia's new leftist president, Gustavo Petro, and Venezuela's socialist president Nicolas Maduro announced on August 11 that they planned to restore diplomatic relations that were severed in 2019.

That rupture was the culmination of years of tension between leftist Venezuela and Colombia under successive conservative presidents starting with Alvaro Uribe.

Petro is Colombia's first leftist president.

The last president in Colombia, Ivan Duque, did not even recognize Maduro as president, but rather opposition leader Juan Guaido.

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