The United States asked on Tuesday (2) that the dialogue process it will resume with the regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela be in “good faith” and reiterated its request that the presidential elections on July 28 in the country be competitive and inclusive.
“We approach dialogue in good faith. We are aware that democratic change will not be easy and requires serious commitment,” a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council told EFE.
The Biden administration is committed to “supporting the will of the Venezuelan people and finding a path to democratic governance through competitive and inclusive elections,” the same source added.
At a later press conference, State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel declined to go into details about the dialogue, but stressed that last year’s Barbados Agreement between Chavismo and the opposition “is the best path to restore the democracy that Venezuelans deserve.”
The US government made the statement after Maduro announced that he would resume dialogue with US authorities on Wednesday (3).
“After thinking about it for two months, I have accepted. Talks with the US will resume next Wednesday,” Maduro said yesterday on his weekly television program.
Maduro said that this new round of negotiations will serve to ensure that the US “complies with the agreements signed in Qatar and reestablishes the terms of dialogue with respect, without manipulation.”
The president of the Venezuelan Parliament, Chavista Jorge Rodríguez, will be the country’s representative in this dialogue process.
Since March 2022, when a White House delegation traveled to Caracas to meet with Maduro, talks between the US and Venezuela have been intermittent and with ups and downs.
As a result of this dialogue, the US partially suspended sanctions on Venezuela in October last year, but the Joe Biden government reversed the process six months later due to the electoral disqualification of opposition leader María Corina Machado.
However, thanks to negotiations, Venezuela obtained, for example, the release, as part of a prisoner exchange, of Colombian businessman Alex Saab, accused of being Maduro’s front man and who was imprisoned in Miami until December 2023.
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