CUCUTA, Colombia (Reuters) – Colombian President  Alvaro Uribe yesterday ruled out any military retaliation  against Venezuela after Venezuelan troops dynamited two  cross-border footbridges.

“The fellow republic of Venezuela will never hear any  aggression from the people or the government of Colombia,”  Uribe said at an event in the border town of Cucuta. “We will  never restrict our frontier to our Venezuelan brothers.”

Venezuela says its troops this week blew up two illegal  footbridges that cross over the border because they had been  used by drug traffickers and smugglers.

Colombia criticized the action as an aggression and said it  would denounce it before the United Nations and the  Organization of American States.

Ties between the two countries have soured over a Colombian  plan to allow U.S. troops more access to its bases. Venezuelan  President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of American influence in  the region, says it sets the stage for a possible attack  against his OPEC nation.

Tensions run high on the 1,375-mile (2,200-km) border, an  area rife with Colombian FARC rebels still fighting a  four-decade-old war and other groups engaged in smuggling  cocaine, guns and other contraband.

The leftist Chavez has ordered his military leaders to  prepare for war, a move he says is just a response to the base  plan. Uribe, a conservative, counters that the base deal is an  extension of current military cooperation with Washington.

Analysts say Chavez may be stirring up tensions to distract  from domestic troubles such as power and water shortages that  are threatening to dent his popularity.

The two leaders have in the past managed to work out their  differences with handshakes and backslaps. But the current  crisis triggered by the US-Colombia plan has curbed their $7  billion per year in bilateral trade, making it harder to  resolve swiftly.