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Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Eu­ro­pean, Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean na­tions will meet Sun­day in Colom­bia to try to strength­en ties amid di­vi­sions in the West­ern Hemi­sphere over the U.S. mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion tar­get­ing al­leged drug-car­ry­ing ves­sels.

But the rel­e­vance of the two-day sum­mit of the Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean States and the Eu­ro­pean Union has come in­to ques­tion, be­cause of the ab­sence of heads of state and se­nior of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion Pres­i­dent Ur­su­la von der Leyen, and Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Friedrich Merz.

Colom­bia’s For­eign Min­istry has at­trib­uted the is­sue to sched­ul­ing con­flicts with a Unit­ed Na­tions cli­mate sum­mit and has sought to down­play con­cerns by high­light­ing the pres­ence of Span­ish Prime Min­is­ter Pe­dro Sánchez and Brazil­ian Pres­i­dent Luiz In­á­cio Lu­la da Sil­va.