The Venezuelan head of state said he was ready to restore diplomatic relations with Washington after several years of rupture, hoping that the United States would abandon its “extremist policy” against Caracas.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Jan. 1 that his country was ready to normalize its relations with the United States, which have been severed since 2019, while Washington has made no secret lately of its desire to overthrow the government there.
“Venezuela is ready, totally ready, to move towards a process of normalization of diplomatic, consular, political relations with this United States government and with those that may come after,” the Venezuelan president said during a meeting. journalist Ignacio Ramonet and the channel Telesurbroadcast on Venezuelan public television.
Maduro bets on Washington’s pragmatism
“We are ready for dialogues at the highest level, for relations of respect, and I hope that a ray of light reaches these United States of North America so that they turn the page, abandon this extremist policy and arrive at a more pragmatic approach to policies towards Venezuela” , he continued.
The government of Nicolas Maduro had broken with the United States in 2019, the year in which the administration of Donald Trump had recognized his opponent Juan Guaido as interim president of Venezuela, the latter having just been harshly disavowed by the same opposition forces. In an effort to oust Hugo Chavez’s successor from power, Washington had enacted a series of sanctions against Caracas, including an oil embargo.
Even if the current president Joe Biden still formally does not recognize Nicolas Maduro as president of Venezuela, judging his election in 2018 fraudulent, the oil crisis caused by the war in Ukraine has led to a warming of relations and a clear inflection of attitude of Washington, interested like a series of other countries, including France, in the energy resources of Caracas.
The White House thus sent emissaries to negotiate in 2022, and eased the sanctions against Venezuela after a breakthrough in the negotiations between power and opposition, in particular allowing the oil giant Chevron to operate in the Latin American country for the next six months.
The Venezuelan president also declared that “things are going well” with the European Union and that a “permanent dialogue” is underway with the head of diplomacy of the Twenty-seven, Josep Borrell.
Nicolas Maduro is making a remarkable comeback on the international stage, benefiting both from Western interest in new sources of gas and oil supplies following the anti-Russian sanctions, and from the leftward shift of several European countries. , starting with neighboring Colombia.
