Uribe and I have very good relations. I owe him loyalty, I admire him, he did great things for our country, and I think that because of what he did, I can now concentrate on different issues, different from what he concentrated on.

The Colombian economy is very strong. We have one of the highest rates of growth in Latin America.

I would never accept general impunity for the guerrillas!

Waging war is much more popular than negotiating, because there you need to compromise.

If we are giving judicial benefits to one part, we should give them to the other part as well.

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.

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.