Washington .- A delegation sent by the acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, began an official visit to Washington this Thursday, to strengthen ties with the Administration of President Donald Trump, as well as to resume diplomatic presence in the North American capital.
The mission, led by the Chargé d’Affaires of Venezuela, Felix Plasencia, and the Vice Minister for Europe and North America, Oliver Blanco, began their agenda in the United States with a meeting with the Under Secretary of State, Christopher Landau, as reported on their social media.
Blanco said that the meeting with Landau and two other deputy ministers aimed to “explore” opportunities to strengthen the relationship between both countries and that the agenda of meetings with various authorities will continue in the following days.
For his part, Plasencia explained that Blanco has been sent by President Rodríguez specifically to take charge of resuming “diplomatic presence” in Washington and to address “matters of interest to Venezuelan citizens.”
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The diplomatic delegation arrived in Washington amid secrecy, two days after Rodríguez announced in Caracas that the trip would take place in order to strengthen relations, without specifying who the delegates would be and the exact date.
The appearance of Plasencia and Blanco in the North American capital happens on the same day that former President Nicolás Maduro went to a New York court, where a federal judge dismissed dismissing the drug trafficking case for which he has been detained along with his wife, Cilia Flores, since January 3 when they captured him in Caracas.
This diplomatic meeting in the United States sets an unprecedented precedent in the new relationship between the Trump Administration and Caracas, which during the first two months of Rodríguez’s interim government, had received various high-ranking US officials who laid out the conditions for resuming ties.
In early March, the Treasury Department put forward a series of regulations to streamline the presence of US oil companies in Venezuela, as well as establish the limits and mechanisms for the import of its oil.
