Gerardo Blyde, leader of the Venezuelan opposition delegation that met in Mexico with the ruling party to negotiate a way out of the crisis, said this Friday that his team is working “very closely” with the United States to reactivate the dialogue with the government of Nicolás Maduro in the Mexican capital.
The negotiations, which began in mid-August 2021, were suspended a little more than two months later by decision of the ruling party, in protest at the extradition of Colombian businessman Álex Saab – an alleged figurehead for Maduro – to the US, where is tried for a crime of money laundering.
Since these negotiations were suspended, the opposition insisted on the need to resume them to continue a consensual search for a way out of the political crisis that it is going through Venezuela.
In this sense, Blyde assured that the opposition “has worked very closely with the United States in specific actions that have the purpose of reactivating the negotiation process in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding,” said the anti-Chavista in a brief statement he made through Twitter.
All this, added the also former mayor of Caracas, “in search of solutions to the serious crisis that affects the Venezuelan people.”
Last May, the parties announced that they had resumed formal talks, with the aim of achieving a “prompt reactivation” of the negotiations.
Blyde’s comment comes minutes after it became known that the United States removed Carlos Erik Malpica Flores – the nephew of Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores – from the Treasury Department’s sanctioned list, on which he had appeared since 2017.
Malpica, former treasurer of Venezuela and former vice president of finance for the state oil company PDVSA, was singled out by the United States as a person “strongly associated” with “the corruption of the government” chaired by Maduro.
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