Venezuela is to re-establish diplomatic links with Colombia as tensions ease following a military crisis which brought the region close to a border war.

The government in Caracas said yesterday it would immediately reinstate full ties with its southern neighbour, cut a week earlier when Colombia's military launched a bombing raid on a rebel camp just inside Ecuadorean territory. Ecuador withdrew its ambassador from Colombia in protest, with Venezuela following suit in support.

Venezuela's foreign ministry said it would send diplomats, including a new ambassador, to Bogotá straight away and was ready to receive Colombian diplomats "as soon as possible", Reuters reported.

Ecuador has yet to discuss a return to normal relations, calling for a guarantee first that Colombia will never again carry out a similar raid.

Both countries sent troops to their respective borders with Colombia last week, and exchanges of increasingly vehement and martial rhetoric prompted fears of military conflict. The crisis developed into a test of regional strength between the leftwing governments in Caracas and Bogotá and the heavily US-supported Colombian presidency.

On Friday, at a regional summit in the Dominican Republic, the presidents of Ecuador and Venezuela, Rafael Correa and Hugo Chávez, shook hands with their Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe, who apologised for the raid.

A summit statement committed all parties to jointly fight threats to national stability from "irregular or criminal groups", a reference to rebel groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, targeted by Colombia's bombing raid.

The attack on the Farc jungle hideout killed more than 20 people, including Raúl Reyes, a senior commander from the group and its chief negotiator with the outside world.

Battered by criticism from around the region, Colombia has sought to justify the raid through the release of information it claims was taken from computer files on a laptop belonging to Reyes and seized at the Farc base.

At the weekend, documents leaked by Colombia's security forces gave new details of what the country says are close links between the rebel group and the presidents of Venezuela and Ecuador.

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