Caracas.- The acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, and the chargé d’affaires of the United States in the South American country, Laura Dogu, met this Monday in Caracas to discuss the three-phase plan proposed by the Administration of US President Donald Trump on the Caribbean nation, which consists of stabilization, recovery and a “democratic transition”.
“Today I met with Delcy Rodríguez and Jorge Rodríguez to reiterate the three phases that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has proposed for Venezuela: stabilization, economic recovery and reconciliation, and transition,” Dogu said, according to a message published by the US Embassy in Caracas on X.
You may be interested in: http://Machado says she is willing to meet with Delcy Rodríguez to talk about transition
The Venezuelan Minister of Communication,
Miguel Ángel Pérez Pirela, indicated that the meeting took place within the framework “of the work agenda between the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the United States of America”, without offering further details about what was discussed between the officials.
After this meeting, the Venezuelan government announced the appointment of former Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia as Venezuela’s diplomatic representative to the United States.
On January 9th, Rubio said that Washington established three phases for the transition in Venezuela after the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on January 3rd amid an attack by US military troops on Caracas and three other nearby regions.
At that moment, he explained that the first phase would be the stabilization of Venezuela under the government in charge of Rodríguez, a second of recovery, and “the final phase, which consists of having a normal economy again, where money benefits the people” and not, he maintained, the adversaries of the U.S.
Relationship Reconstruction
Pérez Pirela indicated, on Telegram, that former Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia will travel in the “coming days” with his team to the United States to assume the diplomatic representation of Venezuela.
On the other hand, the Venezuelan Chancellor, Yván Gil, indicated in statements to the state channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), that with the appointment of diplomats from both countries, a stage of “exhaustive review” of all “cooperation channels” that both nations will be developing “in the coming months” begins.
Gil maintained that the Chavista government has been emphatic in being able to build a “productive agenda, an agenda of peace, of respect” and thus be able, he added, “to steer relations between the United States of North America and Venezuela along a path of happiness for both peoples”.
Dogu arrived in Caracas on Saturday to reopen the US diplomatic mission, closed for seven years after the rupture of relations between both nations after the first Trump government recognized former opposition deputy Juan Guaidó as interim president in January 2019.
Since then, Washington has managed matters related to the oil-producing country from its U.S. External Office for Venezuela, located until now in its embassy in Bogotá.
The US diplomatic mission in Venezuela resumes almost a month after the capture of Maduro and Flores.
Dogu will serve as the person in charge of business for the Venezuela Affairs Unit and will work with people from the public and private sectors, as well as with civil society, to promote the three-phase plan proposed by Rubio.
A “timeline” of transition
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said on Monday that she is willing to meet with Rodríguez to discuss “a schedule” for democratic transition, a process she again described as “irreversible.”
“If it is necessary to exchange in any meeting for the purpose of defining a transition schedule, then it will be done. But I have said it, any process is based on the recognition of July 28, 2024 and for a transition,” Machado expressed in a virtual meeting with Colombian media such as the newspaper El Tiempo and the radio station Caracol Radio.
The former congresswoman referred to the presidential elections of July 28, 2024, in which the majority opposition claims the victory of its candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, despite the fact that the electoral body proclaimed Maduro’s victory.
In the opinion of the opposition leader, the Venezuelan government was convinced that the members of the government “were untouchable and that’s why they are not prepared to accept that this (the transition) is irreversible.”
“These guys are being forced to carry out processes against their own essence. Everything that supports the Maduro regime is repression,” Machado added.
