The Colombian minister of External Relations, Fernando Araújo Perdomo, visited on Tuesday (21) the president of the Committee on External Relations and National Defense, senator Heráclito Fortes (DEM-PI). Araújo was named by president Álvaro Uribe, in February of this year, after being kept in captivity for six years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) - he escaped in December of last year.

In an interview to Agência Senado, Araújo affirmed that one of the subjects discussed with Heráclito was the way the government of his country deals with the internal conflicts with guerrilla and paramilitary groups.

- We talked about the efforts made by the government of president Uribe to end such conflicts, either with a military solution or within a process of negotiated peace - he declared.

According to the minister, he and Heráclito also talked about themes as the Colombian policy of external investment attraction and the implementation of the so-called Goals of the Millennium, proposed by the Organization of the United Nations, and, mainly, about the goal related to the reduction of poverty and hunger.

Fernando Araújo Perdomo still met with Celso Amorim, minister of the External Relations of Brazil, and with the president of the Federal Supreme Court, Ellen Gracie, besides participating in the inauguration, in Brasília, of the Forum for East Asia- Latin America Cooperation (Fealac).

Heráclito Fortes said to Agência Senado that they agrred upon a trip of a group of Brazilian senators to Colombia and the visit of Colombian parliamentarians to Brazil - visits that should happen until the end of the year.