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The presidents of Colombia and Venezuela met on Tuesday afternoon for the first time in six years, as the two neighbouring countries move to restore diplomatic and commercial relations.

Colombian president Gustavo Petro — who took office in August and is the country’s first leftist leader — travelled to Caracas on Tuesday to meet Nicolás Maduro, who resisted a US-backed effort to oust him from Venezuela’s presidential palace in early 2019.

The US, UK, and a handful of other countries still recognise opposition politician Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate president, regarding Maduro’s 2018 re-election as a sham. Colombia was part of that coalition, though Petro has made normalising relations with Maduro a foreign policy priority.

“The friendship of the two peoples must be maintained,” Petro said in a statement alongside Maduro, in front of a portrait of revolutionary hero Simón Bolívar. “Here after several years, a Colombian and a Venezuelan president return to get together and talk, here we are to restart a path that is difficult, but that must be walked.”

Maduro described “a fruitful first meeting, truly auspicious, with good results.”

The two leaders discussed co-operation on climate change, combating drug trafficking, and trade. Trade between the two countries peaked at $7bn in 2007, before Venezuela’s economy collapsed and relations between the two nations soured.

Petro was criticised by rights groups and opposition politicians ahead of travelling to Caracas for overlooking Maduro’s human rights record. A UN fact finding mission in September concluded that Venezuelan intelligence forces were guilty of systemic abuses.

“Colombia should prioritise obtaining concrete human rights commitments from Venezuelan authorities,” Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Petro last week.