The elected president of Colombia, Abelardo de la Espriella, announced on Monday a drastic plan for diplomatic reorganization that includes the closure of 14 embassies and approximately 15 consulates, as well as a complete severance of relations with Cuba and Nicaragua, which he described as "tyrannies."
De la Espriella, who won the presidential elections in June with 49.66% of the votes and will take office on August 7 in Cali, presented the measure as an "optimization" of Colombian foreign service.
"In my government, there will be no ties with tyrannies."
The most striking statement of the announcement was directed straight at Havana and Managua.
"In my government, there will be no ties with tyrannies," declared De la Espriella, making it clear that Cuba and Nicaragua are the only countries with which Colombia will sever ties permanently.
The elected leader explicitly distinguished between the closure of embassies and consulates and the severing of diplomatic relations, something that would only occur with Nicaragua and Cuba.
"These decisions do not mean breaking diplomatic relations with those countries, and even less so with those multilateral organizations, except for Cuba and Nicaragua," he clarified.
For the other affected countries, consular assistance was guaranteed through other missions.
"With the other countries and organizations, Colombia will maintain its international relations and ensure assistance to our nationals through concurrent representation schemes from other embassies in the region," he specified.
The 14 embassies that will be closed
De la Espriella listed the locations that will be closed in the first phase.
“In the first stage, I will close the embassies of Algeria, Azerbaijan, Barbados, Cuba, Czech Republic, Ethiopia, Ghana, Haiti, Hungary, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Romania, Senegal, South Africa,” he noted.
In addition, he will order the suspension of the opening of the embassy in Palestine, initiated by the outgoing Gustavo Petro and which never became operational.
Regarding the missions he considers redundant, he was direct:
"There are embassies that also need to be unified. For example, in Paris, we have the embassy in France and at UNESCO. We need to unify the mission, just like in Rome. In Rome, we have the embassy in Italy and at the FAO. It will be one."
A diplomacy "at the service of national interests"
De la Espriella framed the restructuring within a vision of efficiency and austerity.
“Colombia needs a diplomacy that is modern, efficient, and at the service of national interests, not of petty politics and bureaucracy,” he stated.
The economic justification was equally straightforward: "We cannot maintain such an expensive structure that does not produce concrete results for the country."
And he added: “Every peso we save in bureaucracy will be a peso we can invest in security, health, education, infrastructure, and, above all, opportunities for the poorest.”
During the first 100 days of the government, a technical audit of the remaining diplomatic missions will also be ordered to assess their continuity.
Radical shift in Petro's policy
The announcement completely reverses the foreign policy of the outgoing government.
Petro used Cuba as the venue for peace negotiations with the ELN, sent humanitarian aid to the island, and severed relations with Israel in 2024.
De la Espriella will reverse all those decisions: he will reopen the Colombian embassy in Jerusalem and open a new mission in Nigeria.
The new government had already indicated the closure of the embassies in Cuba and Nicaragua since July 9, when the appointed foreign minister Omar Bula announced the measure.
In the regional context, Costa Rica closed its embassy in Cuba in March 2026 due to the deterioration of human rights on the island, a precedent that Colombia now surpasses with a complete diplomatic break.
Colombia has historical precedents of a break with Havana: the first occurred in 1961 and the second in 1981, with the restoration of relations in both cases several years later.
During the campaign, De la Espriella even proposed that Cuba become a Free Associated State of the United States, similar to Puerto Rico.
Filed under: