I have had extremely good relations with the United States and with both parties (Republicans and Democrats), and I hope to continue to have these good relations, which I, again repeating, do not consider to be mutually exclusive with having good relations with Venezuela or Ecuador or whichever country in South America.

I've not lived one single day of peace in Colombia, and 90 percent of people here say the same thing. We have gotten used to living in a war - we don't even react to massacres.

If you analyze the production of coca in Colombia, you will realize that it is like economic cycles. It goes up and down, it goes up and down depending on the circumstances.

Right here, in this same headquarters, 52 years ago, the Convention that gave the birth certificate to the war on drugs was approved.

I remember in 2000, when President Clinton came to Cartagena just before Plan Colombia started, the country was on the verge of becoming a failed state. Today, we are one of the most solid democracies, where institutions are working, where the scandals such as false positives have come to light because of those functioning institutions.

We have had this happen in the past, right in Colombia: there were amnesties for everybody, guerrilla members were elected mayors, senators. Today there are senators who are - who were previously guerrillas.

The rebels will be thinking about retaliation, what we have to do is stop; stop and transform it into a spiral of forgiveness and reconciliation.