Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called Friday for a cooling of tensions with Colombia and predicted a summit of Latin American presidents in this seaside capital "is going to be positive."

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"People should go cool off a bit, chill out their nerves," Chavez told journalists at his hotel before leaving for the summit at the foreign ministry of the Dominican Republic. "I think the meeting today is going to be positive, because it is going to help the debate. We have to debate, talk, and this is the first step toward finding the road."