Colombia to withdraw from UNASUR league of South American Nations

Colombia will withdraw from the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), the country's new chancellor Carlos Holmes has announced. "We believe in the need to relaunch the OAS (Organization of American States), we are going to launch a new border policy, a new immigration policy, we are going to comply actively, we are going to withdraw from UNASUR," Holmes said, according to the weekly Colombian magazine Semana. The withdrawal was a campaign promise of President Ivan Duque, who told RT last month that the organization was "created as a facade by [former Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez to fracture the inter-American system and seek legitimacy of his dictatorial aspirations." It comes after Venezuela accused Colombia of an assassination attempt on its president, Nicolas Maduro, and asked Bogota to extradite suspects. UNASUR is an organization comprising all 12 South American nations that was founded in 2008 to "build integration in the cultural, economic, social, and political areas."