Caracas, 1 April (EFE) .- Venezuelan Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia asked his Swedish counterpart Ann Linde on Friday not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Caribbean country after holding a telematic meeting with the head of state opponent Juan Guaidó and criticized the human rights situation in the Caribbean country.
“Ms. Ann Linde refrains from interfering in matters of my country’s domestic politics. From the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, we reject the statements made by the Chancellor of the Kingdom of Sweden,” Plasencia wrote on his Twitter account.
He added that President Nicolás Maduro’s efforts in favor of dialogue were the “real triumph” that guaranteed “calm and peace”.
Plasencia deplored this “provocation” by the Swedish government, which he asserted was ignoring Venezuelan democracy and insisting on giving legitimacy to “runaway interlocutors without a valid popular mandate”.
Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde reported via Twitter on March 24 that she had held a meeting with former MP Juan Guaidó, a message Plasencia replied to today.
“We see a continuous, unacceptable deterioration in the humanitarian situation and human rights. Demand speedy repatriation negotiations and an immediate end to the persecution of the political opposition,” the Swede said on the social network.
On February 16, the United States and the European Union (EU), along with nearly twenty other countries, urged that talks in Mexico between the opposition and the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, which were suspended last October, be “urgent” be resumed.
In a joint statement by the US State Department, the parties “reaffirmed their commitment to a Venezuela-led negotiated settlement to restore democracy.”
Maduro announced on March 7 that he had decided to reactivate “the national dialogue process with great force” with “all political factors” in the country, although he did not specify whether that resolution would allow the negotiating table to resume with the recently suspended opposition includes October.
The decision comes after the president confirmed a meeting with a delegation from the United States that traveled to the Caribbean country in early March, from which two US citizens were released.
(c) EFE Agency