Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega announced his country is breaking diplomatic relations with Colombia, intensifying a Latin American rift over the Colombian government's attack against Colombian rebels on Ecuadorian soil.

“We're breaking with the terrorist policy that Alvaro Uribe's government is practicing,” Ortega told reporters.

Ortega announced the decision yesterday during a visit in Managua by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, who is on a whirlwind tour around the region to shore up leftist leaders to pressure Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to apologize for the attack. Latin leaders are expected to seek a diplomatic resolution to the conflict at a regional summit in the Dominican Republic this week.

Correa said instead of apologizing to Ecuador for the assault, Uribe accused Ecuador of “sheltering” rebels of the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Correa denied the allegations and said he would only accept a resolution from the Organization of American States condemning the Colombian violation of Ecuador's sovereignty as a crime.

Nicaragua followed suit after Venezuala and Ecuador both broke ties with Colombia after the attack in northern Ecuador at a rebel camp 2 kilometers from the Colombian border, which took the lives of more than 20 FARC guerillas including the force's No. 2 leader, Raúl Reyes.

“It's time to make decisions and recognize this isn't just a bilateral problem,” Correa said. “There's nothing to negotiate. There's an aggressor and a victim.”

The Colombian assault on Ecuadorian soil came as Nicaragua has been engaged in an ongoing territorial dispute with Colombia over maritime boundaries.

It also occurred as Ortega's closest ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, was taking fire from Uribe for allegedly supporting FARC– which the Colombian government and the United States consider a terrorist organization – and for negotiating with the rebel group to have hostages released. Colombia says FARC, the country's oldest and strongest rebel force, finances itself with profits from drug trafficking and kidnapping.

Not long after the meeting, back in Colombia, FARC blew up a pipeline owned by state oil company Ecopetrol S.A., Bloomberg reported, quoting analysts who said this was the beginning of the rebel group's reprisals against the Colombian government.