BUENOS AIRES, March 3 (RIA Novosti) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has ordered tanks to the country's border with Colombia and closed the Venezuelan embassy in Bogota as tensions grow over the killing of a Colombian rebel inside Ecuador.
"Mr Defense Minister, move me 10 battalions to the border with Colombia right away, tank battalions," Chavez said on his weekly television show on Sunday.
Colombia's military announced on Saturday that Colombian troops had killed Raul Reyes, a key Marxist FARC figure, during an attack on a camp in the jungles of Ecuador. The operation included air strikes and border shootouts with Marxist fighters.
Chavez said on Sunday he would order Russian-made fighter jets into Colombia if its troops carried out operations inside Venezuela.
"The air force should mobilize. We do not want war. But we are not going to let them ... divide and weaken us," he said, adding that Colombia had violated Ecuador's "sovereignty."
Colombia denied it had failed to respect Ecuador's sovereignty, however, and claimed that the anti-FARC operation had been in response to attacks from across the Ecuador / Colombia border.
"Colombia has not violated anyone's sovereignty, only acted in accordance with the principal of legitimate defense," the government said in a statement.
