RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said on Monday (16) he was open to dialogue with the U.S. Government as long as it yields in “its arrogance, its hatred, and contempt”, a negotiation in which he would include a possible return of diplomats.
“If you tell me if we are ready for direct dialogues with the US government, I tell you we are always ready, but they have to yield in their arrogance, in their hatred, and their contempt,” he assured during a press conference.
Read also: Check out our coverage on Venezuela
He then affirmed that if they put “an agenda on the table,” this could include “the return of the chargés d’affaires” and, in this way, Jimmy Story, appointed by the US as an ambassador for Venezuela and who holds his post in Bogota, could return to Caracas.
In this way, Maduro explained, Story “would return to Caracas to do his job” and the Venezuelan chargé d’affaires to the United States “would return to Washington”. “It is the minimum, in a civilized world, in the 21st century, the minimum is to have diplomatic relations, even if they are tense,” he added.
On March 14, 2019, the then US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, announced that “all” its diplomats had already left Venezuela.
Two days earlier, Maduro’s government informed that it had ordered the expulsion of the US diplomats remaining in the country after the US announced a similar decision, as their presence “entails risks” for “the stability of the country”. He then gave them a 72-hour deadline to leave Venezuela, which was met on March 14, 2019.
However, Maduro affirmed this Monday that he hopes that, after opening a dialogue table with the opposition last Friday, “channels of contact, dialogue and negotiation can be opened with the US government.”
Even though he affirmed that in the North American country, “they despise and hate” the Venezuelan government, “now they put up less” with opposition leader Juan Guaidó “because he made a fool of them.”
“They put him to do a job, and he failed, we defeated him, we defeated Guaidó, we crushed him, politically speaking. And, if we crush Guaidó, we crush the US interventionist strategy,” he stressed.
Maduro reiterated that he held conversations with former President Donald Trump when he still occupied the White House, in which he told him that he “detested” Guaidó and that if he was reelected “he was going to throw him aside and was going to establish direct dialogues” with Maduro’s government.
“I don’t know if he was going to comply afterward, but he said it,” said the Venezuelan president, who commented that the US delegates referred to the sector led by Guaidó as “the corrupt, the bandits” and “the thieves”.