After the departure from Caracas in the early hours of last Sunday of the opposition candidate Edmundo González, Spain is preparing to welcome more Venezuelan dissidentsas ABC has learned. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not give any information yesterday on this subject, but the head of Spanish diplomacy already dropped it early yesterday morning, when he declared that I couldn’t “offer details” on the possibility that Spain is harboring more opponents of Nicolas Maduro’s regime.
In an interview on the show ‘Le regard critique’, Jose Manuel Albares He referred to his conversations with Edmundo González and María Corina Machado, to whom he said that “Spain will always be in favor of dialogue and negotiation.” “Spain’s red line is to guarantee freedom of expression and demonstration to all Venezuelans, especially political leaders,” said the Foreign Minister, stressing that “the red line is that of their political rights and physical integrity.”If a Venezuelan brother seeks our hand, he will find itto help and protect you“, Albares stressed.
As ABC has learned, Edmundo González is not the only one who has turned to the Spanish government in recent weeks to leave Venezuela. There are more opponents of Maduro who have asked for help from the government, but all the conversations – and that makes sense given the situation situation that all politicians live unlike the Venezuelan regime– are treated at the highest level and with absolute discretion. Hence also the fact that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not provide any details beyond Albares’ statements yesterday, which leave the door open to the arrival of new Venezuelan dissidents.
Albares did not confirm Zapatero’s conversation, but stressed that “a figure like this is always useful, positive and necessary.”
Minister Albares also denied that there had been any “political negotiation or compensation” between the Spanish and Venezuelan governments regarding the departure of Edmundo González, who has been a refugee for several weeks. at the residence of the Dutch ambassadorthen settled in Spain, in Caracas. “The only contacts were operational,” he assured. And always to facilitate the landing in Caracas of the Spanish Air Force plane to transport the opposition leader to Spain and “ensure” the safety of the vehicle who took him to the airport.
Crazy Delcy Rodriguez
Albares thus denied the Venezuelan vice-president, Delcy Rodriguezwho said yesterday that there were “deep conversations and contacts” between the government of Nicolas Maduro and that of Pedro Sánchez.
Rodríguez said that these conversations “were held to operationalize the departure of the opponent González Urrutia from the country with all the guarantees offered by a safe passage, fruit of the agreement between the two governments.” He also said that the landing of a Spanish Air Force plane can only take place “with the authorization of the aeronautical authorities of Venezuela.” Albares called these statements “nonsense” and repeatedly denied “any type of negotiation.”
What he did not deny was a possible intervention by José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in these contacts between the two governments. He has not confirmed it either. The Executive always emphasizes that the former president is not part of the government, suggesting that he has carte blanche to negotiate on the other side of the Atlantic even before Sánchez arrives at Moncloa. This premise has led the minister to defend and praise Zapatero’s role as an interlocutor of Chavismo.
“President Zapatero has been playing for many years a very positive role in the release of political prisoners in Venezuela and that maintains a fluid dialogue with the government and the opposition,” Albares stressed. And he added: “At this time, a figure like this is always useful, it is always positive and it is always necessary because this is what we must try: promote dialogue and negotiation between the government and the opposition to unblock this situation which is currently completely blocked.
