Venezuelan Foreign Minister Carlos Faría said that the United States government seeks to establish relations with Venezuela without dismantling the illegal sanctions regime that Washington applies to the Caribbean country.
This was stated by the top diplomat during an interview with the minister for culture, Ernesto Villegas, broadcast by VTV this Sunday, September 4.
“It was an initiative of the United States government to make this approach to President Nicolas Maduro to normalize relations, but not the diplomatic one, nor the dismantling of the sanctions, but in the reestablishment of the energy relationship because Washington is interested in it,” he said.
The foreign minister added that Venezuela hopes the United States guides its relationship with Venezuela more clearly, within the temporally constraint that midterm elections in the US represents.
“Midterm elections are about to happen in the United States. It is said that President Biden is waiting for that to happen so that later, he can guide his relationship with our government in a clearer way. So we are waiting for that to happen,” said Carlos Faría.
He added that along this path it would be possible to hope that political relations between the two nations would be normalized.
“Feedback is awaited, the response to that very clear statement that the government of President Nicolás Maduro has given… I think it could happen, there are some political conditions that are being seen, the midterm elections in the United States and Joe Biden would be waiting to see the results,” he said.
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“This is taking place at the initiative of the United States government without dismantling any sanctions applied by Washington to Caracas,” Faría stressed.
Venezuela and the United States broke their diplomatic relations in 2019. In March of this year, 2022, contacts were resumed when Joe Biden’s administration sent a high-level delegation to Caracas that met with President Maduro just after the US and Europe launched a battery of sanctions against Russia following the beginning of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
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In the foreign minister’s opinion, the normalization of diplomatic relations between Colombia and Venezuela is already underway, since both governments have expressed their will, and proof of this is that ambassadors of each nation are already working on cooperation and exchange policies.
He stressed that both countries work to continue protecting the common history of unity and brotherhood, “we have to preserve good relations, preserve everything that may happen in the political scene.”
He added that in the short term, normalization will be achieved in all spaces and areas of economic policy, the good development of the meeting between Colombia and Venezuela, which will benefit both peoples.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/EF
- October 2, 2024