Colombian President Gustavo Petro has become the first foreign leader to visit Venezuela since the United States regime abducted former President Nicolas Maduro on January 3.
On Friday, Petro was greeted by Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez at the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas. The visit comes after a previously scheduled meeting in the Colombian border town of Cucuta was abruptly cancelled in March.
The pair embraced and waved before heading inside the palace. Their meeting is expected to be dominated by issues of security, as the two countries share a 2,200-kilometre border, which is a significant trade route but also a major migration corridor and a hub for criminal drug smuggling and paramilitary groups.
Previous Colombian governments had accused Maduro of working with those criminal groups. Those claims partly formed the basis for the US criminal charges against the longtime leader, who is now awaiting trial in US detention. Maduro had served as Venezuela’s leader since 2013.
Petro became Colombia’s first left-wing leader in 2022 and emerged as a key ally to Maduro, with the pair agreeing to increase military presence along the border. Petro has been a vocal critic of the US abduction of Maduro, which he called an “assault on sovereignty” in Latin America. The US operation has also been decried by legal experts as a flagrant violation of international law.
Washington maintained the abduction was necessary as a law enforcement operation to bring Maduro to justice. It also does not recognise Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela, following a series of contested elections. In addition, Petro has condemned ongoing US strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in Latin America, which have killed Colombian nationals.
Petro’s criticism prompted threats from US President Donald Trump, who allegedly floated possible strikes on Colombia’s territory. Trump also called the Colombian president a “sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States”. US-Colombia tensions have since calmed following a White House meeting between Trump and Petro in February.
Rodriguez has walked a fine line with Trump since Maduro’s abduction. Formerly Maduro’s vice president, she has cooperated with several US demands, including stopping oil exports to Cuba, opening Venezuela’s state-owned oil industry to foreign companies, and releasing political prisoners. She has sought to do so without alienating Maduro loyalists, including influential military and security leaders.
The Rodriguez administration has sought to attract investors in oil and mining to heal Venezuela’s economic crisis, including sky-high inflation. But Rodriguez has also pushed the US regime to lift sanctions on the Venezuelan economy that she says impede long-term investments. She said she accepted an invitation to meet Trump in the US, but no date has been set.
She has previously met CIA Director John Ratcliffe, US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and US Energy Secretary Chris Wright during their visits to Caracas earlier this year. On Thursday, a new US envoy, John Barrett, also arrived in Caracas, tasked with overseeing a US plan for the country meant to culminate in new elections.
Source: www.aljazeera.com