A former Colombian president sought to ease tensions between Caracas and Bogota on Thursday, but Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez said relations will remain rocky if the neighboring nation gives U.S. troops access to its bases. Ernesto Samper, who was Colombia's president in 1994-98, said he met with Chavez hoping to «open a door in Colombia's relations with Venezuela.» Chavez welcomed Samper's effort, but denied that the visitor was acting as a mediator in the conflict between the two South American nations. It wasn't clear how the meeting was arranged. Samper's Liberal Party is in opposition to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Venezuela's leftist president, who is a strong opponent of U.S. influence in Latin America, said tensions will continue unless Uribe reverses his decision to negotiate an agreement with Washington that would grant the U.S. military long-term leases on seven bases. «The only way this situation returns, let's say, to calm, is for Colombia to refuse to give its territory to the United States,» Chavez told journalists at the presidential palace. -- SPA
