Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro talking on the telephone from his office in Miraflores Palace, Caracas. Photo: Presidential Press/File photo.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro had a telephone conversation with Paraguayan President-elect Santiago Peña of the conservative Colorado party, “to whom he conveyed the Venezuelan people’s congratulations after the election day of April 30,” reported Foreign Minister Yván Gil via a statement released on social media.
“The president-elect appreciated the conversation and conveyed to President Nicolás Maduro Moros his resolve to reestablish political and diplomatic relations between the two countries in the short term,” reads the statement.
In this regard, both presidents “vowed to resume the path of the Latin American union in order to guarantee the prosperity of the region and its peoples,” reads the statement.
El presidente @NicolasMaduro conversó con Santiago Peña Palacios, presidente electo de la República del Paraguay, a quien felicitó tras resultar electo en la jornada electoral del 30 de abril. Ambos hicieron votos por retomar la senda de la unión latinoamericana. #TrabajoYPatria pic.twitter.com/8wnCiNokLf
— Yvan Gil (@yvangil) May 1, 2023
Peña, who won with 42,4% of the votes against 27,4% achieved by Efraín Alegre of a center-left coalition, promised during the campaign that if won, Paraguay would resume its ties with Caracas. Relations between Paraguay and Venezuela were interrupted in 2019 when now outgoing President Mario Abdo Benítez broke ties with Venezuela and prepared to recognize the purported interim government of Juan Guaidó, who arrived in Miami after fleeing Venezuela last week.
“The fact that Paraguay recognizes a government does not imply that we are a single voice in principles and values. We believe that democracy must be enriched by broad electoral processes and the defense of human rights. Our voice will always be a voice of support for the Venezuelan people. I have said it publicly; my intention is to reestablish relations with Venezuela,” asserted the now-elected president who, like Abdo, belongs to the ultra-conservative Colorado Party.
With Peña’s decision to reestablish ties with Venezuela, Paraguay becomes the fourth country belonging to the now-extinct Lima Group to normalize bilateral relations with the Venezuelan government in recent times. The current president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, did so after his inauguration on January 1, 2023.
After Colombian President Gustavo Petro took office in 2022, diplomatic relations with Venezuela were reestablished. Colombia had previously frozen ties with Venezuela in February 2019 following the failed US-led regime change operation using former deputy Guaido. Months earlier, Argentina did the same by formalizing the resumption of diplomatic ties with Caracas.
(La IguanaTV) with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SF
