The former president of the Spanish Government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero confirmed on Tuesday that he participated “in the task of facilitating” so that the Venezuelan opposition leader, Edmundo González, could travel to Spain and he expressed his confidence that “sooner or later” there will be attempts to reach a political solution.
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Zapatero made these statements upon his arrival at the Ateneo de Madrid, where the book ‘Democracy and its rights’, of which he is the coordinator, was presented.
The former president said he knows first-hand everything that happened in Caracas in the days leading up to the departure of the opposition leader and the negotiations that took place for his departure, but he said that, out of respect for that, he must remain silent.
“Because the future may determine and require me to perform some tasks. I will always help that country regain hope and have a future (…) The mediators have never spoken,” he said.
Opposition leader González Urrutia, who was the subject of an arrest warrant, spent a month in hiding before leaving Venezuela and arriving in Spain on September 8. to request asylum.
The opposition candidate said last week that he signed a document under “coercion” from the Venezuelan government to “comply” with a court ruling that validated the questioned reelection of Nicolás Maduro, in exchange for allowing him to leave his country.
The document was signed by González Urrutia in the presence of senior Chavista leaders when he was taking refuge in the residence of the Spanish ambassador in Caracas, which led the Spanish opposition to criticize the government of socialist Pedro Sánchez.
However, the Venezuelan opposition leader denied having been “coerced” by Spain to leave Venezuela and seek asylum in Madrid. “I have not been coerced by the Government of Spain or by the Spanish ambassador in Venezuela,” González Urrutia said in a letter that was published by the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, on his account on the social network X.
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