QUITO - The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, today challenged former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe to join him in taking a lie detector test to disprove that Correa had maintained a "benign" position with the FARC, provided that he also answer questions about Colombian paramilitaries and drug traffickers.

In a meeting with the foreign press, Correa accused Uribe of "throwing insults" and said his foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, had answered "as he should." Patino had called Uribe a "liar" and "unbalanced," after the former Colombian president had stated that Correa had maintained a "benign position" against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and had "aroused suspicion" that he was sympathetic to the narcoterrorist group.

"I propose that on October 1st, a lie detector, which he (Uribe)  can take to check if I had anything to do with the FARC, but he will also be brought before the same polygraph to prove he has nothing to do with paramilitaries or with drug traffickers, " said Correa.

Correa stated that the Colombian president had lied after the bombing that was conducted by the Colombian Army in 2008 on a FARC base just inside Colombia's border with Ecuador. Correa said in the past that Uribe said the attack had taken place during a "hot pursuit" of the terrorists, when in fact it was a planned operation.

The bombing resulted in 26 dead, including the then "number two" of the FARC, alias "Raul Reyes," and caused the rupture of diplomatic relations between Ecuador and Colombia, which were restored with the arrival of Juan Manuel Santos as President of Colombia. Last week, the Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin, urged Ecuador to "show respect" for former President Uribe.

President Correa, as well as his ally Hugo Chavez, had loudly condemned the attack inside the border of Ecuador, especially after intelligence gathered from the raid showed that the FARC terrorist group had given large amounts of cash to Correa's campaign at a very crucial time during the presidential race, and that Hugo Chavez and a number of left-wing Colombian congresspersons had been acting in the interests of the FARC while publicly purporting to negotiate for the release of hostages held by the terrorist group.