Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, said yesterday, in response to remarks by the Vice-President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, about her upcoming trip to Colombia, that “Spain does not engage in coup activities in Latin America or anywhere else in the world”.
“The government of Pedro Sánchez inherits Trump’s extremism, shelters the notorious terrorist and extremists in Spain and articulates with Iván Duque coup and destabilising plans against Venezuela from Colombia”, said Delcy Rodríguez via Twitter in relation to the visit that González Laya will make this week to Bogotá, which includes a trip to Cúcuta, very close to the border with Venezuela, to see on the ground the situation of Venezuelan refugees in Colombia.
“I want to say very clearly that my trip to Colombia has a triple objective”, the minister declared yesterday in Brussels during the press conference following the EU Foreign Affairs Council, in which the names of 19 other high-ranking Venezuelan officials were added to the list of persons sanctioned for their role in “acts and decisions undermining democracy and the rule of law in the country, or as a result of serious human rights violations”, according to the Council, without further details.
One of the objectives of the trip is to “support the Colombian government’s efforts to welcome Venezuelan refugees”, said the minister, who recalled that during the Donors’ Conference in solidarity with Venezuelan refugees and migrants, organised in May 2020 jointly by the European Union and Spain and with the support of the UN, she herself had already expressed her “desire to visit Colombia and highlight the efforts that the government is making with regard to refugees”. “This is precisely what I intend to do during my next visit to Bogotá; I could not do it last year because of the COVID situation, but I can do it now”, she added.
“The second issue that I will address during my trip is bilateral relations, and in particular the possible visit of President Iván Duque to Spain in the second part of this year, and thirdly, to take an interest in the situation of the peace agreements in Colombia, peace agreements that Spain supported and that we continue to support now in their implementation phase”, she added. “In any case, the Spanish government does not engage in coup activities in Latin America or anywhere else in the world”, she assured.
Regarding yesterday’s Council decision on Venezuela, which brings the total number of people subject to sanctions to 55, González Laya said that these measures are “very surgical, they are not aimed at the Venezuelan population, but very specifically at 19 individuals, they are calibrated and there is also the possibility of suspending them if the situation improves”. “In any case, the 27 member states have expressed our willingness to continue working with all the forces in Venezuela to move towards a political solution”, she concluded.
