Venezuela and Colombia on Monday reopened their border to vehicles carrying goods after seven years of partial closures, including three years when it was completely closed due to a political row.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro and representatives of Venezuelan Prime Minister Nicolas Maduro attended the ceremony.

The first truck left San Antonio del Tachira on the Venezuelan side of the border just after noon and crossed the Simon Bolivar Bridge to Cucuta in Colombia.

“We are resuming relations and taking decisive steps to promote the full and absolute opening of the border between fraternal peoples,” Maduro said on Twitter.

“It is a historic and transcendental day!”

The South American neighbors severed diplomatic relations in 2019 under Colombia’s conservative President Ivan Duque.

But since Petro succeeded him in August, Colombia’s first-ever left-wing president has set about improving ties with Venezuela’s populist left-wing government.

“It is very, very important for us to make progress on people’s fundamental rights. Families were separated, there was a rupture in our respectful and trusting relationships,” Colombian lawmaker Jairo Cristo said during the ceremony.

This reopening is the first step in fully restoring trade ties between the two countries, which were valued at around $7.2 billion in 2008.

The neighbors share a 2,200-kilometer (1,350-mile) border riddled with armed groups who have created insecurity by fighting over lucrative illegal businesses like drug trafficking and smuggling.

The two countries were due to resume flights between their capitals on Monday.

Caracas and Bogota officially resumed diplomatic relations on August 29 by sending ambassadors to each other’s capitals.

Venezuela severed diplomatic ties in 2019 after Duque expressed support for opposition leader Juan Guaido’s attempts to oust Maduro.

Crossing the border by vehicles carrying goods had been restricted since 2015 but was completely blocked in 2019 when Guaido tried unsuccessfully to force trucks carrying food and medicine from the United States through.

Venezuela has suffered for years from an economic crisis that has led to rising poverty and millions of people leaving the country, many to settle in Colombia.