Albares assures there was no compensation to Maduro for González Urrutia’s departure

The Diplomat The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, assured yesterday that there have been no compensations to the Government of Nicolas Maduro for the departure to Spain of the opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia In the last few hours, Albares has denied in several interviews that the Executive of Pedro Sánchez has maintained “political negotiations” with the Venezuelan Government for the exile of González Urrutia, after the executive vice president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, affirmed that there were “extensive conversations and contacts” and that the Attorney General of the State, Tarek William Saab, assured that “the Governments of Spain and Venezuela agreed to the granting of a safe conduct”. Rodríguez stated on his Telegram account: "The forger is not a good advisor. Extensive conversations and contacts took place to operationalize the departure of the opposition leader González Urrutia from the country with the full guarantees offered by a safe-conduct, the product of the agreement between both governments." And he added: "The landing of a Spanish Air Force aircraft with authorization from the aeronautical authorities of Venezuela is a communication event." The Spanish minister acknowledged in statements to Onda Cero that there were "operational contacts" to facilitate the landing in Caracas of the Spanish Air Force plane that finally transported the opposition leader to Spain and to guarantee the safety of the vehicle that took him from the residence of the Spanish ambassador where he was staying to the airport. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Global Affairs, Diego Martínez Belió, who accompanied González Urrutia on his trip to Spain, traveled on that plane. In any case, Albares insisted that "there has been no political negotiation between the Government of Spain and the Government of Venezuela and there has been no compensation for Edmundo González to be able to leave." The minister added that, in any case, the Government would "never" have accepted them. In an interview on Telecinco, the minister, when asked about the role that former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero could have played in González Urrutia's departure, did not respond directly and limited himself to saying that "for many years now he has played a very positive role in the release of political prisoners in Venezuela." Albares indicated in his statements that he spoke with González Urrutia when he was already at the residence of the Spanish ambassador, where he arrived on the 5th, after more than a month as a refugee in the Embassy of the Netherlands, and told him that he could stay there "as long as he wanted", as happened with the opposition member Leopoldo López. He also indicated that Edmundo González "is safe, free, has freedom of expression and demonstration, he can continue thinking and saying the same things", while reiterating that Spain is not going to "close the door" to other Venezuelan opposition members if they need it. The minister asked yesterday to appear in the Congress of Deputies to explain how the political asylum process undertaken with González Urrutia has been. The operation carried out by the Executive has been the object of criticism by the main opposition party, the PP, which already on Sunday indicated that with the departure of González Urrutia they were not doing a favour to democracy, but rather removing a problem for the dictatorship Yesterday, the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in an interview on Antena 3, declared that if he were at the head of the Spanish Executive, he would have given political asylum to González Urrutia if he had requested it, but with the treatment of the elected president of Venezuela and at the same time demanding the International Criminal Court (ICC) to arrest Nicolás Maduro, as have done the former presidents Felipe González, José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy. After insisting that Maduro is much happier than yesterday" because "he has managed to get the leader who won the elections" in Venezuela "out of the country and already in Spain." "Therefore - he asked - who has won? For the moment Maduro. Who has lost? Venezuelan democracy. It turns out that the democratic politician who won the elections has had to leave the country and the dictator who lost them remains in the country and controls the Government." Edmundo González justifies his departure For his part, Edmundo González Urrutia published a letter yesterday in which he justifies his decision to leave Venezuela and travel to Spain so that "things change" and a new stage can open in his country. In his letter, disseminated through social networks, González Urrutia expresses his gratitude to the Spanish Government for having welcomed him and given him "protection at this time", and also to the Embassy of the Netherlands in Caracas, where he was a refugee for more than a month, after the elections of July 28. The former presidential candidate says that he made his decision “thinking about Venezuela and that our destiny as a country cannot, should not be one of conflict of pain and suffering.” “I have done it,” he explains, “thinking about my family and all Venezuelan families at this time of so much tension and anguish. I have done it so that things change and we build a new stage for Venezuela.” After indicating that his commitment “does not come from a personal ambition,” he says that his decision is “a gesture that reaches out to everyone” and bets on dialogue: “Only the politics of dialogue can make us meet again as compatriots. Only democracy and the realization of the popular will can be the path to our future as a country and I will continue to be committed to this.” Finally, he thanks all the support received and praises “the work and effort of María Corina Machado who led this electoral process” as well as “the Unitary Platform for its work and commitment.”

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