The Venezuelan regime designated this Monday Félix Plasencia as its new diplomatic representative to the United States, in a key step to re-establish the official Venezuelan presence in Washington and relaunch the bilateral relationship after years of tensions and formal absence of ambassadors.
The appointment was announced by Delcy Rodríguez, shortly after the meeting held in Miraflores with the U.S. chargé d’affaires, Laura Dogu, who recently assumed the reopening of her country’s diplomatic mission in Caracas.
The Chavista chancellor, Yván Gil, confirmed that Plasencia and his team will travel to the United States in the coming days to begin their diplomatic work on North American territory.
According to Gil, the meeting between Rodríguez and Dogu allowed for the establishment of a work agenda that will address historical differences, as well as energy, political, and economic issues of common interest for both countries.
“
We have reviewed the agenda of peace and respect,” the chancellor pointed out when detailing the scope of the bilateral conversation.
Félix Plasencia began his career in the nineties at the Venezuelan embassy in London and, since then, has held key positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including the direction of Protocol, regional vice-ministries and the area of multilateral issues.
Between 2019 and 2021 he was the
Minister of Tourism and Foreign Trade and head of the Francisco de Miranda Insular Territory.
Plasencia was
ambassador to China for two years, a period in which he promoted economic and diplomatic cooperation agreements with the Beijing regime.
Subsequently, he assumed the Venezuelan Chancellery between August 2021 and May 2022, and then served as
ambassador to Colombia during the reactivation of relations with the government of Gustavo Petro.
In the multilateral sphere, Plasencia participated in sessions of the
UN Human Rights Council, where he repeatedly rejected US sanctions on Venezuela. During his tenure as chancellor and ambassador, he defended the policy of alliances with countries such as
China, Russia and Turkey.
The diplomat has been a central figure in Caracas’ strategy to confront international isolation and promote a discourse of resistance against sanctions. He is not on the lists of individuals sanctioned by the U.S. Office of
Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), unlike other high-ranking figures in Chavismo.
The appointment of Plasencia comes just hours after a key meeting in Miraflores, where Delcy Rodríguez received
Laura Dogu, the new chargé d’affaires of the United States for Venezuela.
This is the first formal high-level contact between both countries since the rupture of diplomatic relations in 2019. The visit of Dogu, who landed in Caracas on Saturday to reopen the US mission, marks the beginning of a stage of re-establishment of institutional channels between Washington and Chavismo.
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“**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**,” wrote Dogu on the official X account of the United States embassy in Venezuela.
The appointment of Plasencia seeks to consolidate Venezuelan representation in Washington and facilitate progress on a bilateral agenda that includes regional security, trade, energy, and human rights.
It is expected that in the coming days, Plasencia and his team will begin the procedures to settle in the US capital, where they will have to manage both the administrative aspects of the mission and the re-establishment of institutional channels of contact and negotiation.
