RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – “I discussed with President Pedro Castillo the Vuelta a la Patria plan; we have over 42,000 Venezuelans registered to return from Peru and we have agreed to coordinate the governments of Peru and Venezuela for a massive Vuelta a la Patria plan,” said Maduro in an event broadcast by state-owned Venezolana de Televisión (VTV) channel.
About the plan, he explained that Venezuela will provide the airplanes and will seek “support” from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) “and other international organizations to implement this plan because these Venezuelans want to return.”
The conversation between the two leaders took place in Mexico during the most recent summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which both attended.
According to Maduro, he had many meetings with the presidents of Bolivia, Cuba, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica. On the other hand, he assured that, in the “waiting room”, he had “conversations with all the presidents there.”
Maduro said that, during the time he was with Castillo, they also talked about “an interest” his government has in “purchasing some products of Peruvian industry and agriculture, as well as reactivating trade.”
“We need to buy some products from Peru for Venezuelan industry to be used in CLAP,” he added in reference to the food distribution program for low-income families.
According to the Interagency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (R4V), some 5.6 million Venezuelans have emigrated due to the crisis in the Caribbean nation. Of these, 1.04 million have settled in Peru, the country with the second-most Venezuelan migrants, after Colombia.
Maduro yesterday triggered a new dispute in the Peruvian government, after Prime Minister Guido Bellido publicly reprimanded Deputy Foreign Minister Luis Enrique Chávez for saying that Peru does not recognize any Venezuelan authority.
In a message published on Twitter, Bellido contradicted the Deputy Foreign Minister and stated that “it is not the Government’s position not to recognize legitimate authority in Venezuela.”
The meeting between Castillo and Maduro that Bellido mentioned had not been reported by the Peruvian nor the Venezuelan government at the time.