CARACAS (Sputnik) – White House National Security Adviser John Bolton did not allow the administration of President Donald Trump to establish a dialogue with the Venezuelan government, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro told Sputnik in an interview.
Maduro noted that he had made attempts to establish contacts with the US government for quite a long tome, but this has brought no results.
“For all these years, I have been trying on a personal level [to establish dialogue]. I have sent messages that reached Trump publicly, through media, in order to establish a relationship with the US government, in order to have respect and dialogue, despite the political, cultural and ideological differences between Donald Trump and Nicolas Maduro. And it seemed like the window of opportunity opened for that. But Bolton prevented Donald Trump from initiating a dialogue with Nicolas Maduro. I have the information that he has prohibited this”, Maduro said.
In September, Maduro said that his possible meeting with his US counterpart Donald Trump could result in significant changes, stressing that he had enough courage to establish the respectful high-level dialogue with the United States.
In turn, Trump said he was willing to meet with Maduro, too, if this would help strengthen Venezuela.
Over the past several days, Venezuela has been witnessing anti-government protests. Last week, Juan Guaido declared himself the country’s interim president.
The United States urged Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to step down and let Guaido assume the presidency. Maduro has responded that Washington attempted to stage a coup d’etat in Venezuela and announced his decision to cut off diplomatic ties with the United States.
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