U.S. says Colombia should work out tensions

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Colombia and Ecuador should work out tensions among themselves, and the United States had not confirmed Venezuela's claim of stepped-up military deployment toward Colombia, the White House said on Wednesday.

"We do not have independent confirmation of that claim of troop movements down in that area," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

"We do believe that Colombia and Ecuador should be able to work this out between themselves, we don't see any need for a country that wasn't involved to be a part of it," she told reporters. "We do think it's curious that a country such as Venezuela would be raising a spectre of military action against a country who was defending itself against terrorism, that says a lot about Venezuela."

Venezuela said it was mobilizing forces to the Colombian border after Colombia conducted a weekend raid inside Ecuador.

(Reporting by Tabassum Zakaria; Editing by Doina Chiacu)