LIMA (AFP) — Outgoing US President George W. Bush urged his successor on Saturday to continue to support Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, calling the South American conservative "a good friend."
"He is a strong leader. He's a good friend. And our Congress and our government must never turn our back on a friend like Uribe," Bush said during a speech at an APEC summit in Lima that was his last foreign trip as US leader.
Uribe, a conservative like Bush, is Washington's main ally in South America.
His country has received more than five billion dollars during Bush's eight years in office, mainly to help its military fight narcotraffickers and leftwing rebels.
But Bush's hopes of seeing through a bilateral free trade deal with Colombia were dashed when the US Congress adjourned without passing an agreement both countries had signed nearly two years ago.
Bush's successor, Barack Obama, criticized the free trade deal with Colombia as a senator, pointing to violence against labor unions. But Obama has said he supports free trade in general.
In his own speech at the APEC summit -- despite Colombia not being a member of the 21-member Asia-Pacific forum -- Uribe expressed hope that the US Congress would come around to approving the trade agreement.
Former president George Bush senior promoted the accord with Colombia, and president Bill Clinton also backed it, he noted.
"President Bush continued with this. We trust that the US Congress will understand and pass this treaty," Uribe said.
"We all have to continue to work with a mixture of patience and urgency."
Uribe also called on APEC to admit Colombia into the club, saying doing so would further boost his country's economic development.
The 56-year-old Colombian president enjoyed high popularity in his country after the July rescue of politician Ingrid Betancourt from FARC rebels.
But his stock has since fallen due to allegations his administration was linked to violent rightwing paramilitaries, and he last month lost a bid to have the constitution changed so he could run for a third term.
Uribe has also been accused, in a declassified 1991 US Defense Intelligence Agency report, of once having been implicated in Colombia's billion-dollar cocaine trade and of having been close friends with Pablo Escobar, the notorious drug lord who was killed in a shootout with police in 1993.
The Colombian president has strenuously denied that claim, and the US government under Bush has distanced itself from the report.
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