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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Nicolas Maduro says Venezuela and Panama are restoring diplomatic and business ties cut during heightened tensions just weeks earlier.
Maduro said Thursday in a nationally televised broadcast that he and Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela settled their differences by phone. The two countries agreed to return their ambassadors and resume commercial airline flights, among other measures.
Relations between the countries broke in early April shortly after Panama put Maduro on a watch list of Venezuelan officials as being at "high risk" for laundering money.
In the ensuing diplomatic spat both countries had banned dozens of key businesses from the other country and pulled home their ambassadors.
Maduro says the two leaders also agreed to create a commission to resolve all other outstanding challenges between the two Latin American countries.
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