“I want to thank the Ecuadorian government for the effort it has made recently in the border area, neutralizing some FARC terrorists,” the conservative head of state told Cali’s Radio Calidad.

He said the neighboring country’s actions are helping “a great deal” in the fight against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which is on both the U.S. and EU lists of terrorist groups and depends on drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping-for-ransom as the main means of financing its operations.

Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva sent a similar message to the Ecuadorian government, expressing gratitude in a press conference “for that presence and for that determination that President (Rafael) Correa also showed (on Wednesday).”

Silva said he spoke on several occasions Wednesday by telephone with Ecuadorian Security Minister Miguel Carvajal, who informed him that his nation’s army had killed three insurgents and dismantled a rebel camp on its side of the border.

The slain guerrillas belonged to the FARC faction that had been responsible for providing security to Raul Reyes, a top rebel commander who was killed in early 2008 in a Colombian military airstrike on his clandestine camp in Ecuador.

Silva said the Ecuadorian action facilitated a Colombian military operation early Wednesday in which nine rebels from that same front were killed and six more were captured.

The engagement took place early Wednesday in Las Lomas, a settlement on the shores of the San Miguel River in the southern province of Putumayo.

Soldiers destroyed three camps and seized 17 rifles, nine pistols, 300 electronic detonators, 63 grenades, 32 landmines, two grenade launchers and other gear in the operation.

“This presence of our two countries and our armed forces on both sides of the border is going to have a very noticeable, very significant impact on the FARC’s viability in that region.

“It’s very important here to highlight the cooperation, the collaboration between our two countries, because both nations are victims of narco-terrorism,” the Colombian defense minister said, adding that this new reality is the fruit of the normalization of bilateral relations.

Colombia and Ecuador began talks last September aimed at restoring diplomatic ties, which Correa’s leftist government had severed following the March 2008 bombing of Reyes’ camp.

Most of the 720 kilometer (447 mile) border between Ecuador and Colombia runs through dense Amazon jungles stalked by Colombian guerrillas, militias and drug smugglers.