CARACAS, Venezuela
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, unknown to the United States, called on Joe Biden’s new administration on Saturday to “Turn the page”, declaring-willing a “A new path” in the diplomatic relations between Caracas and Washington, broken two years ago.
“We are ready to walk a new path of relations with the Joe Biden government on the basis of mutual respect, dialogue, communication and understanding,” Maduro said.
Venezuela “is ready to turn the page and build new paths of respect, dialogue and diplomatic communication with the new US government,” the president added in a speech to supporters from a balcony of the Miraflores presidential palace. , in the center of Caracas.
The event coincided with the commemorations for January 23, 1958, the date on which the military dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez fell.
Exactly on January 23, 2019, the opposition leader Juan Guaidó was proclaimed president in charge of Venezuela after the opposition majority that controlled the unicameral National Assembly declared Maduro a “usurper”, accusing him of having been re-elected with a “fraud” in 2018.
The Donald Trump administration immediately recognized Guaidó as interim president and the socialist ruler responded by announcing the rupture of relations between Caracas and Washington, tense since the era of the victim of former President Hugo Chávez (1999-2013 ).
“Two years ago, I had to react with force and dignity, and from this same balcony, I proceeded as head of state to sever all political and diplomatic relations with the United States government at the time,” he continued. Mature. “Trump is gone!” He has done.
Antony Blinken, nominated by Biden as the new Secretary of State, has said that the White House will continue to recognize Guaidó despite the new Chavista majority in Parliament, after elections boycotted by the opposition – denouncing them as fraudulent – and unknown by the United States, the European Union and several Latin American countries.
Blinken called Maduro a “brutal dictator.”
Guaidó defends the continuity of the old opposition Parliament in the face of questions in the legislative elections of January 6 and, with it, of his position as head of the congress, from which he demanded the interim presidency.
Analysts believe the Biden government will be more moderate and will advocate for international mediation for a gradual transition of power in Venezuela.