Albares will try to discuss the situation of the detained Spaniards with Yván Gil in New York

Eduardo González Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares will try to meet his Venezuelan counterpart, Yván Gil, in New York to demand explanations about the situation of the two Spaniards detained by the regime on double charges of belonging to the CNI and planning an attack against President Nicolás Maduro “I need, I demand to know and to be confirmed the identity of the two Spaniards unjustly detained in Venezuela, what they are accused of,” Albares told the program ‘Al Rojo Vivo’ on La Sexta, from New York, where he is accompanying the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, in the High Level Week of the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. “I will see my Venezuelan colleague here, we are all the foreign ministers of the world, and I will once again tell him what I told him by telephone” a week ago, announced Albares. José Manuel Albares and Yván Gil are in New York this week. The Venezuelan foreign minister will be in charge of speaking before the General Assembly on behalf of his country. Both should coincide, above all, at the EU-CELAC ministerial meeting scheduled on the margins of the High Level Week, but Foreign Ministry has not yet confirmed whether there will be a bilateral meeting. In the aforementioned telephone interview, Albares said, the minister asked his Venezuelan colleague for “direct and personal access to them to exercise all diplomatic and consular protection and for them to return to Spain, which is where they should be, with their families.” For his part, Yván Gil assured him that the two Spaniards “were perfectly well and would remain so.” However, the Spanish minister demanded the possibility of “verifying it personally” through the ambassador and the consul of Spain in Caracas and, according to Albares, the Venezuelan chancellor “agreed that, as soon as he had the information on where these two Spaniards were, he would transfer it” so that Spain could offer them diplomatic protection. “But that has not been fulfilled, and that is why my intention is to strongly transfer this demand to him. International Law, the Vienna Conventions, bind everyone, including Venezuela,” he warned. According to Albares, the issue of Venezuela was addressed this Monday at the informal Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union, held in New York also on the margins of the High Level Week. At this meeting, he explained, the minister requested the solidarity of the EU with the two detained Spaniards, as well as with the Czech citizen who “is also unjustly detained.” The Czech Republic has no diplomatic representation in Venezuela and has asked Spain to also take care of its fellow citizen. Last Friday, Albares assured a group of journalists that the Government has not yet provided any official confirmation of the identity of the two detainees or their whereabouts, despite having expressly requested it from Yván Gil during the aforementioned telephone conversation, in accordance with the Vienna Convention. On September 14, the Venezuelan Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, announced the arrest of Spanish citizens Andrés Martínez Adasme, 32, and José María Basoa Valdovinos, 35, whom he linked to a plot orchestrated by the opposition to assassinate Nicolás Maduro and other Venezuelan leaders. According to Cabello, the two detainees are linked to the Spanish National Intelligence Centre (CNI), but the Spanish Government has rejected this accusation and has assured that they do not belong to any public body. Their families lost track of them in Colombia on September 2 when they were heading to Puerto Ayacucho and filed a complaint for their disappearance with the Ertzaintza on September 9. Meanwhile, Albares held a meeting tonight in New York with his counterparts from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to “analyze what can be done to bring about this dialogue and this solution that can only come from Venezuela and between Venezuelans,” according to the minister himself. On the other hand, the Secretary of State for the European Union, Fernando Sampedro, assured this Tuesday that Spain has requested that the situation in Venezuela and the EU's responses to this crisis be included in the agenda of the next European Council to be held in Brussels on October 17 and 18. “It is an opportunity to raise the discussion to the level of leaders,” Sampedro told the press, quoted by the Europa Press agency, without specifying whether the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, is going to request the rest of the European leaders to increase diplomatic pressure on the Maduro regime or even to consider new sanctions. Zapatero admits that he mediated in González's departure Former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero admitted on Tuesday for the first time that he personally participated in the task of "facilitating" the departure from Venezuela of opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, who has been exiled in Spain since September 8 to request political asylum. In statements collected by the agencies Europa Press and Efe, Zapatero assured that he facilitated "the solution that there was," referring to the entry of Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez into the Spanish Embassy to meet with Edmundo González, who has denounced having been coerced into being able to leave the country. "I have always tried to find solutions, which have sometimes been close and other times not, and to help people with difficulties," he continued upon his arrival at the Ateneo, where he participated in the presentation of the book "Democracy and its rights," coordinated by himself. Also, Zapatero was convinced that, "sooner or later," there will be attempts to reach a political solution in Venezuela. “I hope so!” declared Zapatero, who was in favour of dialogue and of achieving a peaceful solution through the search for consensus. “I must say that when someone facilitates, when someone mediates, they must be extraordinarily respectful. It is a right and a duty to maintain discretion and loyalty to the people who have allowed, or wanted, you to facilitate in some task,” he added.

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