The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, will begin today a round of contacts with representatives of the Government of Nicolás Maduro and opposition leaders such as Leopoldo López and Henrique Capriles.
It was Albares himself who announced on Monday during his appearance in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Congress of Deputies, his intention to maintain these contacts to see how Spain could contribute to the dialogue process opened days ago in. Mexico. The Venezuelan government and opposition have scheduled a new meeting for Friday, the 3rd.
The PP has been reproaching the Government for the fact that our country has been absent from the gestation of a dialogue process in a country with which we have so many ties, and this was made clear to the Minister in his appearance.
Albares said that today, Wednesday, he will receive the Chargé d’Affaires of Venezuela, Mauricio Rodríguez Gelfenstein, the highest representative of the Government of Nicolás Maduro in Spain, since both countries have lowered the level of relations and do not have an ambassador in their respective capitals. In fact, the Chargé d’Affaires with Cabinet letters that Spain had in Caracas, Juan Fernández-Trigo, has been chosen by Albares to take charge of the recovered Secretariat of State for Ibero-America and the Caribbean, so that he is the person who will be in charge of the Spanish Government’s Venezuela dossier.
In addition, the minister has already arranged an interview with Leopoldo López, one of the main opposition figures, who has been living in Spain for months, after having been a refugee in the Spanish Embassy in Caracas for a year and a half. López is a member of Voluntad Popular, the party to which Juan Guaidó belongs, whom some countries such as the United States recognized as the legitimate president of Venezuela, but not Spain.
López confirmed to ABC newspaper that he has been in contact with Albares and that next week he has a meeting scheduled, which will also be attended by Antonio Ecarri, Juan Guaidó’s representative in our country. López added that he trusts that soon the minister will be able, likewise, to have a telephone conversation with Guaidó.
Likewise, the Foreign Minister said that it is his intention to speak by phone with Henrique Capriles, former opposition candidate for the Presidency and who has emerged in recent times as a figure more in favor of dialogue than Guaidó of dialoguing with the Government.
Albares, who did not rule out other contacts if necessary, explained that the objective is “to have as broad a vision as possible of how Spain can help this dialogue”, which he trusts “will go ahead”.
Spain has always been committed to dialogue to try to find a way out of the Venezuelan crisis, insisting that it should be the Venezuelans who decide their future. However, despite repeated offers to contribute to this dialogue, our country has not participated in the talks prior to the one that has now been institutionalized and in which Norway and the Netherlands have acted as mediators for the opposition and Russia, for the Maduro regime. Neither is our country part of the Group of Friends of the process initiated, in which the United States is a member.
