Nicolás Maduro says Venezuela is “ready” to resume relations with the United States

The President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, has declared that his country is “ready” to normalize its relations with the United States, at a time when the increase in world prices of various energy sources, such as oil and natural gas, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, pushes the West to approach the Latin American country.

“Venezuela is ready, fully prepared, to start a process of normalization of diplomatic, consular, political relations, with this US government and with governments that may come,” Maduro said in an interview with reporter Frenchman Ignacio Ramonet and the Telesur network, broadcast this Sunday by Venezuelan state television.

The socialist leader broke ties with Washington in 2019 when the then-Donald Trump administration recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s “acting president”.

To oust Maduro, the United States has launched a series of sanctions against Venezuela, including an embargo on Venezuelan oil.

“One thing is strategic political differences, the vision that one can have of the world, and another thing is that there are no relationships,” Maduro said in the interview.

The head of state highlighted that with the previous US administration of Donald Trump, “a model was imposed on Venezuela: anti-politics”.

Maduro recalled that they wanted to “hit” the country with “extremist sanctions” and that all these policies “have been defeated”.

While formally maintaining the policy of ignoring Maduro for considering his 2018 re-election fraudulent, Joe Biden’s government has sent delegates to Caracas in 2022 to meet with him and negotiated, among other things, prisoner exchanges.

“We are prepared for dialogues at the highest level, for relations of respect, and hopefully a halo of light will reach the United States of America, which will turn the page and put aside that extremist policy and arrive at more pragmatic policies than in Venezuela . ” said Maduro.

The Chavista ruler celebrated the license that the White House granted to the energy giant Chevron to operate in the country for six months, after his delegates and the Venezuelan opposition resumed negotiations in Mexico.

“Open doors”

“I am sending a message to all companies: Venezuela is open doors, with special conditions, for investment, for production,” he said.

Maduro also said that “things are going well” with the European Union, with “permanent dialogue” with the bloc’s head of diplomacy, Josep Borrell.

And in this context, he announced that Spain has given its approval to Coromoto Godoy as the new Venezuelan ambassador in Madrid, after the Spanish government on Tuesday appointed Ramón Santos Martínez its ambassador in Caracas after two years without representation due to political tensions .

“Very soon he will be in Madrid,” Maduro said.

Voices like that of French President Emmanuel Macron have called for “diversifying sources of oil supplies”, including Iran and Venezuela, to stop the rise in prices after sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

I greet Lula from afar

On Sunday, Maduro congratulated Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has begun his third term as president of Brazil, and assured that ways are being opened for the union of the countries of South America. But in the end he was not present at the inauguration ceremony, despite the fact that the new president’s team had managed at the last minute to lift the ban on Chavista leaders from entering the country.

“I joyfully congratulate the inauguration of our comrade Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president of Brazil. A new wave of liberation is sweeping through the great homeland, opening paths of geopolitical advancement for South American union projects,” Maduro said in his report on the social network Twitter.

The president of the Venezuelan parliament, Jorge Rodríguez, traveled to Brasilia on behalf of his country’s government.

Source: agencies

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