Colombian President Gustavo Petro and  Venezuelan  acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday agreed to military cooperation to tackle crime on their shared border. Petro's visit marked the first to Caracas by a foreign leader since the US ouster of Nicolas Maduro . Petro said the joint effort would focus on  "freeing border areas from the mafias engaged in a range of illegal businesses, starting with cocaine, illicit gold, human trafficking and rare minerals." The Catatumbo region. which lies in northern Colombia on the border with Venezuela, became an epicenter of violence over a year ago. Rival left-wing extremist groups in the mountainous area have been fighting to gain control over human trafficking, the weapons trade, illegal mining, the cultivation of drugs and the cocaine trade. Catatumbo holds a strategic importance for the armed groups, with drugs being easily transported out of the country from the area.…