Pecohub Venezuela and the United States have taken first steps towards restoring diplomatic ties after a dramatic US military raid led to the capture and ouster of Venezuelan ex-President Nicolas Maduroand his wife Cilia Flores last week.
Venezuela said on Friday that it had launched talks with the US on reestablishing relations as a team of US diplomats and a security detail visited the South American country.
The delegation was in Caracas to make an initial assessment about the potential reopening of the US Embassy in the Venezuelan capital, the US State Department said in a statement.
The government of interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez, who served as Maduro’s deputy, said that it “has decided to initiate an exploratory diplomatic process” with the United States government “aimed at reestablishing diplomatic missions in both countries.”
Venezuela said that it also plans to send a delegation to Washington but did not give any further details.
An official Venezuelan visit to the US would likely require a waiver of sanctions by the US Treasury Department.
On Friday, Rodriguez said she had held telephone conversations with the leaders of Brazil, Colombia and Spain about what the interim president called the US’ “grave, criminal, illegal, and illegitimate aggression” against her country.
Later on Friday, however, she said diplomacy with US President Donald Trump was the best way to defend Venezuela and to “ensure the return of President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.”
“We will meet face-to-face in diplomacy … to defend the peace of Venezuela, the stability of Venezuela, the future, to defend our independence and to defend our sacred and inalienable sovereignty,” Rodríguez said at the inauguration of a women’s health clinic in Caracas.
On Thursday, Rodriguez’s brother, Jorge, who heads the Venezuelan National Assembly, announced that authorities would start releasing political prisoners as a gesture of “peace.”
While the US capture of Maduro was ostensibly because of his alleged ties to drug trafficking networks, Trump has repeatedly said one of the main factors behind the US intervention in Venezuela’s is gaining access to the South American country’s vast oil reserves.
