By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER
Associated Press Writer

President Hugo Chavez said Thursday that his government will not tolerate incursions by Colombian rebels into Venezuelan territory.

Chavez said he was responding to concerns relayed this week by Colombia's government over the killing of eight Colombian soldiers by a rebel ambush in the Sierra de Perija, a mountain range on the 1,400-mile (2,300-kilometer) border separating the two countries.

Colombian and U.S. officials have long said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, find sanctuary inside Venezuela, and Washington has accused some in Chavez's inner circle of aiding the rebels. Chavez denies that.

The Venezuelan leader told a crowd of supporters he wanted to reassure his Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe, that Venezuela's military won't allow guerrillas to slip across the frontier.

But Chavez also appeared to suggest that Colombian soldiers wouldn't be welcome either.

"We will not permit any type of armed incursion that violates Venezuela's sovereignty, wherever it comes from," he said.

Earlier in the day, Uribe told reporters at the Vatican following an audience with Pope Benedict XVI that he would talk with Chavez about guerrillas using Venezuelan territory to mount attacks inside Colombia.

"I'm sure President Chavez will show solidarity with our soldiers," Uribe said.

While Chavez vowed not to permit rebels from slipping across the border, he also repeated that his socialist government does not support military action as a means of ending Colombia's decades-long armed conflict.

And he stressed that Venezuela will not take sides in the conflict.

"It's Colombia's war. It's not our war ... We are not going to get involved in that war," Chavez said.

U.S. and Colombian officials contend the FARC uses Venezuelan territory for refuge, to treat its wounded, regroup and rearm. In September, Washington alleged three security officials close to Chavez help the FARC by supplying it with arms and drug-trafficking assistance.

The U.S. State Department's annual assessment of global terrorism released Thursday said Venezuela "did not systematically police the 1,400-mile Venezuelan-Colombian border to prevent the movement of groups of armed terrorists or to interdict arms or the flow of narcotics."

It said both Colombian rebels and right-wing paramilitaries "regularly crossed into Venezuelan territory to rest and regroup as well as to extort protection money and kidnap Venezuelans to finance their operations."

Uribe's government said last year that documents found in a laptop belonging to a slain top FARC leader indicated Chavez was preparing to offer them a loan of several hundred million dollars.

Chavez has long denied that Venezuela supports the rebels.

During a meeting with Uribe earlier this month, Chavez urged the FARC to agree to a proposed cease-fire with Colombia's government. Uribe has said he would be willing to begin exploratory talks with the FARC if they were to go four months "without a single terrorist action."