Maduro says Venezuela ‘fully prepared’ to resume ties with US

Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro said on Sunday he was ready to normalize relations with the United States after years of being targeted by Washington sanctions.

“Venezuela is prepared, fully prepared, to give way to a process of normalization of diplomatic, consular, political relations, with this US government and with the governments that come,” said Maduro in an interview with French journalist Ignacio Ramonet and the network telesur.

Relations between Maduro and Washington have been broken since 2019, when Donald Trump, then US president, recognized Juan Guaidó, one of the main opponents of the regime, as president of Venezuela – last week, the Venezuelan opposition decided to no longer recognize treating Guaidó as interim president. There was also a series of US sanctions against the country, including an embargo against Venezuelan oil.

Joe Biden’s government is formally against Maduro for considering his re-election in 2018 to be fraudulent, but sought some windows of dialogue with Caracas in 2022, sending delegations to meet with Maduro and negotiate, among other things, prisoner exchanges.

“We are prepared for dialogues at the highest level, for respectful relations, and we hope that a halo of light reaches the US, that they turn the page and leave this extremist policy aside and come to more pragmatic policies with regard to Venezuela” , said Maduro in this Sunday’s interview.

The pragmatism that Maduro referred to became more evident when he celebrated the license granted by the White House to the oil company Chevron to re-import oil and derivatives produced in Venezuelan territory —although with the condition that PDVSA, the country’s state-owned giant, is not financially benefited.

“I send a message to all companies: Venezuela’s doors are open, with special conditions for investment and production,” said Maduro, adding that “things are going well” with the European Union, with “permanent dialogue” with the head of the bloc’s diplomacy, Josep Borrell.

The Venezuelan leader also announced that Spain approved Coromoto Godoy as Venezuela’s new ambassador in Madrid, after the Spanish government appointed Ramón Santos Martínez as its ambassador in Caracas after two years without representation due to political tensions.

In recent months, Maduro has been treated with more cordiality by European leaders, like the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, who met with the Venezuelan at COP27 and proposed a “bilateral work”. The rapprochement has obvious reasons: the War in Ukraine affected the supply of gas and oil from Russia to Europe and, now, the continent needs new suppliers. In June, Paris advocated “diversification of oil supply sources” during a G7 meeting in Germany and pointed to Iran and Venezuela – both targets of US and EU sanctions.

Maduro was also expected at the inauguration ceremony of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). An ordinance by the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) that prevented the Venezuelan from traveling to Brazil was revoked on the eve of the event, but Maduro ended up failing to attend. Caracas did not formally explain to Itamaraty the reason for his absence, and Maduro was represented at the inauguration by the head of the Venezuelan Legislative, Jorge Rodriguez.