Maduro says he is ready to normalize relations with the United States – RT in French

The Venezuelan head of state said he was ready to restore diplomatic relations with Washington after several years of rupture, hoping that the United States would abandon its “extremist policy” against Caracas.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on January 1 that his country was ready to normalize its relations with the United States, which have been broken since 2019 – while Washington has made no secret lately of its desire to overthrow the government there.

“Venezuela is ready, totally ready, to move towards a process of normalization of diplomatic, consular, political relations with this government of the United States and with those who may come next,” the Venezuelan president said during a meeting. interview with the French journalist Ignacio Ramonet and the Telesur channel, broadcast by Venezuelan public television.

Maduro bets on pragmatism from Washington

“We are ready for dialogues at the highest level, for relations of respect, and I hope that a ray of light will reach these United States of North America so that they turn the page, leave aside this extremist policy, and arrive at more pragmatic policies vis-à-vis Venezuela,” he continued.

The government of Nicolas Maduro had broken with the United States in 2019, the year in which the administration of Donald Trump had recognized the opponent Juan Guaido as interim president of Venezuela, the latter having just been severely disavowed by the forces of opposition themselves. In an attempt to oust Hugo Chavez’s successor from power, Washington had adopted a battery of sanctions against Caracas, including an oil embargo.

Even if the current president Joe Biden continues formally not to recognize Nicolas Maduro as president of Venezuela, judging his election in 2018 fraudulent, the oil crisis caused by the war in Ukraine has led to a warming of relations and a clear inflection of the attitude of Washington, interested like a series of other countries, including France, in the energy resources of Caracas.

The White House thus sent emissaries to negotiate in 2022, and eased the sanctions against Venezuela after a breakthrough in the negotiations between power and opposition, in particular allowing the oil giant Chevron to operate in the Latin American country for the six coming months.

The Venezuelan president also declared that “things are progressing well” with the European Union and that a “permanent dialogue” is being conducted with the head of diplomacy of the Twenty-Seven, Josep Borrell.

Nicolas Maduro is making a remarkable comeback on the international scene, benefiting both from Western interest in new sources of gas and oil supply in the wake of anti-Russian sanctions, as well as from the swing to the left of a series of Latin American countries, starting with neighboring Colombia.