Ecaudor and Colombia clash at Latin American Summit

Santo Domingo: The presidents of Ecuador and Colombia clashed at a Latin American summit on Friday as leaders hurried to defuse a regional crisis over a cross-border raid by Colombia to kill a rebel commander.

Leftist Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa called his conservative Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe a liar for accusing him of links to Marxist rebels sheltering in Ecuador.

The two interrupted each other and the summit host implored they respect each others' interventions.

Correa repeatedly shook his head, smiled disdainfully and at one point told Uribe: "Calm down, president, calm down."

The clash erupted as Colombia's army killed another senior rebel on Friday, highlighting Uribe's US backed offensive that has made him popular at home in the decades-old conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The rebel, Ivan Rios, was a high-ranking commander but not as senior as the guerrilla killed in the Ecuador attack.