LIMA (Reuters) - Days after calling German Chancellor Angela Merkel a political descendant of Adolf Hitler, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez shook hands with her on Friday and apologized.
"I haven't come here to fight. I was pleased to shake handswith the German chancellor," Chavez was quoted as saying at asummit of European and Latin American leaders in the Peruviancapital, Lima.
"I told her that I was sorry if I'd been harsh," he said,according to Peru's state news agency Andina.
Photographs showed the two smiling as they shook handswhile heads of state mingled at the gathering dedicated totackling poverty and climate change.
Merkel, a conservative, had sought to play down the spatbefore her arrival in Lima, saying she would greet alldelegates courteously.
Earlier this week, Chavez made his Hitler comments afterMerkel implied the leftist leader had harmed relations betweenEurope and Latin America.
Chavez routinely insults conservative leaders, especiallyU.S. President George W. Bush, calling him the devil.
During a summit in Chile late last year, Spain's king toldthe socialist leader to "shut up."
(Reporting by Marco Aquino; Writing by Helen Popper;Editing by Terry Wade and John O'Callaghan)
