The Friday Latin American summit in the Dominican Republic was very fruitful as the three South-American leaders involved in the crisis, Uribe, Chavez and Correa finally reached an agreement to stop the feud and even shook hands.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez promised Sunday that he will withdraw the troops deployed at the border with Colombia, and also intervened during the summit talks to enable the dialogue between President Correa and his Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe.

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said that the diplomatic ties between Ecuador and Colombia will not be immediately restored. Colombian leader Alvaro Uribe apologized for the last week’s raid across the Colombian border into Ecuador, to track down the FARC rebels; in the Colombian incursion, the second-in-command leader of the FARC rebels was killed, Raul Reyes, along with 23 other rebels. Correa openly opposed the Colombian operation, and asked President Uribe to pledge that this kind of operation won’t repeat.

“With the commitment of never attacking a brother country again and by asking forgiveness, we can consider this very serious incident resolved,” Correa said, shaking hands with Uribe.

President Uribe accused Chavez and Correa of having had ties with the FARC, after data were taken from the computer of Raul Reyes, the killed rebel leader. Bogota accused Chavez’s government of paying 300 million dollars to the FARC. The allegations were denied by the two leaders, who called the U.S.-backed Colombian president a liar and a lackey. Despite the war of words between the three leaders, they were successful in solving a threatening regional dispute without outside help and without violence.

The Colombian government’s raid a week ago was a blow to the FARC, as it lost two major leaders. The government announced Friday that another senior leader, Ivan Rios, had been killed by his own men in western Colombia.  

After the summit, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez flew to Cuba for the first time since his friend and mentor Fidel Castro, turned over power to his younger bother Raul last month.