BOGOTA (AFP) — President Alvaro Uribe spoke on the telephone with Hillary Clinton, president-elect Barack Obama's incoming secretary of state, the office of the Colombian leader said.
Uribe, who wants the US Congress to approve a free trade agreement the two countries signed in 2006, spoke with Clinton for 10 minutes around 1530 GMT, said presidential spokesman Cesar Mauricio Velasquez.
"It was a constructive conversation," Velasquez said, giving no further details.
The president's office later issued a release stating that "these political contacts" between the two governments "are within the framework of the policy of maintaining a traditionally bipartisan focus on relations between the two nations."
Obama takes over as US president on January 20.
On November 19 Uribe spoke by telephone with Obama. The conversation focused on the free trade agreement, held up in the US Congress by Democrats who want Bogota to resolve issues such as the murder of labor leaders and the links between right-wing paramilitary groups and conservatives allies of the Uribe administration.
In July, during the US presidential campaign, it was Democrat Obama's rival, Republican John McCain, who stopped in Colombia and met with Uribe. McCain at the time criticized Obama for not paying enough attention to Latin America.
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