Gustavo Petro has accused the US-led bloc's leaders of supporting "genocide" in Gaza

Colombia must cut ties with NATO as the leaders of the military bloc support "genocide" of Palestinians, President Gustavo Petro has declared.

Colombia, a traditional US ally in South America, became the first country in the region to obtain the status of NATO global partner in 2017. Petro, who took office in 2022 as Colombia's first leftist president, severed diplomatic relations with Israel last year over what he describes as a genocide being carried out by the Israeli government against Palestinians.

"What do we do in NATO? If NATO's top brass are for genocide, what are we doing there?" Petro said at a pro-Palestinian international conference in Bogota on Wednesday.

"Hasn't the time come for another military alliance? Because how can we be with armies that drop bombs on children?" he added. "Those armies aren't armies of freedom, they're armies of darkness. We must have armies of light."

Petro argued that NATO is a Cold War relic and asserted that nations like Colombia are treated as "half-members" within the US-led military bloc, granted symbolic partnerships but not full accession.

The two-day conference in Bogota hosted representatives from a dozen countries in the Global South. Attendees signed a joint declaration calling for economic sanctions and legal actions against Israel, including an arms embargo, restrictions on dual-use goods, port denials for vessels carrying cargo for Israeli forces, and support for international accountability for crimes allegedly committed in occupied territories.

Petro's criticism reflects a break from Colombia's historically warm relationship with Israel. The late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez once dubbed Colombia the "Israel of Latin America," arguing it served a similar geopolitical role in the region.

Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza following a deadly raid led by the militant group Hamas in October 2023. The first independent study of casualties in Gaza, published last month, estimated the number of fatalities in the enclave at almost 84,000 by January 2025. Israel is currently pushing Palestinians to move to a "humanitarian city" that would purportedly be free of Hamas influence - which critics say is just a euphemism for a concentration camp.