Venezuelan government delegation to the Mexico Talks holding posters promoting the Free Alex Saab campaign Photo: Twitter/@jorgerpsuv.
Venezuelan Vice Minister of Anti-Blockade Policies and director of the Venezuelan Anti-Blockade Observatory William Castillo said that he would agree with any method that allows the release of the Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab, including a humanitarian prisoner exchange.
“It is a valid mechanism. I don’t quite understand why the United States doesn’t do it, I don’t have the mind to think about the gringos or the clumsiness they commit, but obviously it would be a valid option for Venezuela,” he said this Friday, May 5, during an interview for the program A Pulso, broadcast on Venezolana de Televisión.
Castillo said that the release of the Venezuelan diplomatic special envoy is a priority for the Venezuelan government and explained that this request is part of a five-point agenda raised by the Venezuelan government to be able to resume negotiations with the far-right opposition belonging to the “Unitary Platform” political alliance.
“It is difficult, we have to continue supporting this cause. Of course for us it is a transcendental issue and it is part of our agenda of these five points that we are going to continue carrying out,” Castillo said while explaining that Camilla Fabri de Saab, wife of the Venezuelan diplomat, was a fundamental part of the social agreement reached in the last round of the Mexico Talks. The US government and the Venezuelan opposition would later fail to comply with by not unfreezing the agreed upon $3.2 billion.
“They accepted the incorporation [into the government negotiation team] of his wife, Camilla, representing Alex Saab, and we had a long debate here in Venezuela [to achieve that], but now we return to the same rhetoric,” he said.
Castillo also explained that most the charges and arguments against Saab generated during the US judicial process have been discarded, but the US government is keeping him in custody for use as a political trump card.
“We have a criminal country that is the US; a judicial system that criminalizes people and then weaponizes that criminalization to put political pressure on countries, and, in the case of Saab, we are in this situation.”
Castillo then emphasized President Nicolás Maduro’s desire for dialogue to improve the conditions of the Venezuelan people, hit by illegal sanctions and the blockade.
“I think that the Venezuelan people must be vindicated from this aggression and from the very power that Alex Saab continues to resist against,” Castillo added.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/KZ
blaorinoco 5.8.23 3 PM
