European and Latin American leaders sought to unite against poverty, global warming and high food prices on Friday, but their summit was clouded by a feud between Colombia and Venezuela.

The gathering came just a day after Interpol vouched for the authenticity of documents implicating Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in supporting Colombian rebels, prompting impassioned denials from Chavez.

Peruvian President Alan Garcia opened the summit with an appeal for the nearly 60 leaders or top officials to set aside petty issues and focus on setting clear strategies in the struggle against poverty and global warming.

“It is imperative that what unites us take precedence in our meetings,” Garcia said. “We leave aside, for the moment, what we disagree on.”

But some disagreements are fresh and angry.

Interpol reported on Thursday that computer files suggesting Venezuela was arming and financing Colombian guerrillas came from a rebel camp inside Ecuador and were not tampered with, discrediting Venezuela’s assertions that Colombia faked them.

The findings increase pressure on Venezuela’s fiery, anti-U.S. leader to explain his ties to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

But Chavez on Thursday dismissed the report as “ridiculous” and he derided Interpol’s secretary-general, Ronald Noble, calling him “a tremendous actor” and an “immoral police officer who applauds killers.”

He denies arming or funding the FARC _ though he openly sympathizes with Latin America’s most powerful rebel army _ and threatened on Thursday to scale back economic ties with Colombia because of the Interpol report.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe avoided a direct response to Chavez, saying the probe showed his country had not manipulated computer files found when its troops destroyed a FARC camp in Ecuador on March 1, killing a key guerrilla leader and 24 others.

“The only thing Colombia wants is that the terrorism we have suffered does not affect our brother countries,” he said. “Terrorism doesn’t have borders or ethics.”

The raid prompted Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, an ally of Chavez, to sever diplomatic relations with Colombia and to furiously denounce computer documents indicating that his government, too, had dealt with the FARC.

Correa’s justice minister, Gustavo Jalkh, insisted on Friday that the computer files “cannot have credibility” because the evidence had been mishandled.

During a European tour this week, Correa said he would consider restoring ties only if Uribe halts “Colombia’s verbal aggression.”

The three feuding leaders were meeting Friday for the first time since an uncomfortable summit in the Dominican Republic in March, when Uribe and Chavez embraced one another at the urging of Dominican President Leonel Fernandez. Correa also reluctantly shook Uribe’s hand.

Friday’s working sessions were closed to the news media, meaning any public displays of anger _ such as when King Juan Carlos of Spain told Chavez to “shut up” at a Chilean summit six months ago _ were unlikely.

At least one feud seemed to have calmed on Friday.

Chavez, who recently suggested that German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party shares the ideals of Adolf Hitler, gave her a friendly greeting and assured her he had not meant to insult her, according to members of the chancellor’s delegation.

Chavez later shook hands with Merkel and exchanged a few friendly words.

Merkel recently drew Chavez’s wrath by saying he did not speak for Latin America and that leftist polices such as his were not the solution to the region’s problems.