(United Nations) Around thirty countries led by the United States called on Thursday, on the sidelines of the UN, to maintain pressure on President Nicolas Maduro in order to force him to engage in dialogue with the Venezuelan opposition, after the contested presidential election in this country.
“Now is the time for Venezuelan political leaders to begin constructive and inclusive discussions […] in order to break the political impasse in which the country finds itself,” they assured in a joint statement published at the end of a ministerial meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
In addition to the United States, France, Canada, the United Kingdom, Argentina and Spain are among the 31 signatory countries.
PHOTO CAITLIN OCHS, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
“The regime may try to obscure the results, but the Venezuelan people have spoken. Our task now is to ensure that his voice is heard,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, co-host of the meeting alongside Argentina.
We are here united in the commitment to defend the human rights of the Venezuelan people. This means insisting that Maduro engage in direct dialogue with Venezuela’s united democratic opposition that leads to a peaceful return to democracy.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry called the joint statement “ridiculous.” “It is only an accumulation of infamies, of distortions [de la réalité] and coup aspirations,” he reacted in a press release.
President Maduro claimed victory in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election, contested by the opposition and much of the international community.
Nicolas Maduro, whose victory was validated by the Supreme Court on August 22, was proclaimed winner with 52% of the votes by the National Electoral Council (CNE), which however did not make public the minutes of the election offices. vote, arguing computer hacking.
The opposition claims, on the contrary, that its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won the election with more than 60% of the votes, based on the minutes of the vote provided by its tellers.
Mr. Gonzalez Urrutia, threatened with prison in his country, has been exiled since September 8 in Spain, which granted him asylum.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and Mr. Gonzalez Urrutia welcomed the joint declaration of the 31 countries.
For the signatories, we must “continue to ask the Maduro regime to end the repression of peaceful demonstrators, to end the repression of political opponents and to immediately and unconditionally release all those arbitrarily detained.”
Washington accuses President Maduro of seeking to cling to power by force, but is refraining for the moment from strengthening its sanctions on Venezuelan oil.
For her part, Argentine Minister Diana Mondino stressed that “the problem is that Maduro’s Venezuela does not need Venezuelans.”
“He doesn’t care at all. They have oil, they have corruption,” she added, recalling that some 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled the country since Venezuela saw its economy devastated by the crisis and its GDP contract by 80% in ten years.