Discussions in Venezuela fail to progress
The meetings have been slow-going and shrouded in mystery, with neither side disclosing details.
Bogota: For weeks, representatives of Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro and his would-be successor, Opposition leader Juan Guaid, were shuttling back and forth to Barba-dos trying to agree on a common path out of the country’s prolonged political standoff.
The meetings have been slow-going and shrouded in mystery, with neither side disclosing details. But now Maduro’s supporters are accusing the US of trying to blow up the fragile process.
The purported explosive: sweeping new sanctions that freeze all of the Maduro government’s assets in the US and even threaten to punish firms from third countries that keep doing business with his socialist administration.
“They’re trying to dynamite the dialogue,” foreign minister Jorge Arreaza said on Tuesday at a news conference to denounce comments by US National Security Adviser John Bolton defending the asset freeze. Building on its role as a facilitator of Colombia’s peace process, Norway in May managed to overcome deep distrust arising from past failed attempts at dialogue and bring the two sides together in Oslo.