{"id":199574,"date":"2019-01-27T23:15:12","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T04:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=199574"},"modified":"2019-01-27T23:15:12","modified_gmt":"2019-01-28T04:15:12","slug":"venezuela-allows-us-diplomats-to-stay-defusing-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/01\/27\/venezuela-allows-us-diplomats-to-stay-defusing-showdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela allows US diplomats to stay, defusing showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Maduro gave U.S. diplomats three days to leave the country, but the Trump administration said it wouldn’t obey, arguing that Maduro is no longer\u00a0Venezuela’s legitimate president. (File Photo<\/a>: Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CARACAS,\u00a0Venezuela\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Venezuela\u00a0defused a potential showdown with the United States, suspending a demand that U.S. diplomats leave the country as Washington called on the world to \u201cpick a side\u201d in the South American nation’s fast-moving crisis.<\/p>\n

Socialist President Nicolas Maduro broke relations with the United States on Wednesday after the Trump administration and many other nations in the region recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as\u00a0Venezuela’s interim president, a move that Maduro called a coup attempt.<\/p>\n

Maduro gave U.S. diplomats three days to leave the country, but the Trump administration said it wouldn’t obey, arguing that Maduro is no longer\u00a0Venezuela’s legitimate president. That set the stage for a showdown at the hilltop U.S. Embassy compound Saturday night, when the deadline was to expire.<\/p>\n

But as the sun set on\u00a0Venezuela’s capital, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying Maduro’s government was suspending the expulsion to provide a 30-day window for negotiating with U.S. officials about setting up a \u201cU.S. interests office\u201d in\u00a0Venezuela\u00a0and a similar Venezuelan office in the United States. The U.S. and Cuba had a similar arrangement for decades before the Obama administration restored diplomatic relations with the communist-run island.<\/p>\n

The State Department did not confirm the Venezuelan government’s account, reiterating only that its priority remains the safety of its personnel and that it has no plans to close the embassy.<\/p>\n

Earlier Saturday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the U.N. Security Council: \u201cLet me be 100 per cent clear \u2014 President Trump and I fully expect that our diplomats will continue to receive protections provided under the Vienna Convention. Do not test the United States on our resolve to protect our people.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Security Council meeting, critics and supporters of Maduro’s government faced off in a reflection of the world’s deep divisions over\u00a0Venezuela, which is mired in political confrontation as well as an economic collapse that has caused millions to flee the country.<\/p>\n

During the debate, which was requested by the U.S., Pompeo urged all nations to end\u00a0Venezuela’s \u201cnightmare\u201d and support Guaido.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow is the time for every other national to pick a side,\u201d Pompeo said. \u201cNo more delays, no more games. Either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you’re in league with Maduro and his mayhem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia charged that the Trump administration is trying \u201cto engineer a coup\u201d against Maduro. He said\u00a0Venezuela\u00a0doesn’t threaten international peace and security, and he accused \u201cextremist opponents\u201d of Maduro’s government of choosing \u201cmaximum confrontation,\u201d including the artificial creation of a parallel government.<\/p>\n

Nebenzia urged Pompeo to say whether the U.S. will use military force.<\/p>\n

Pompeo later told reporters who asked for a response, \u201cI am not going to speculate or hypothesize on what the U.S. will do next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pompeo was accompanied to New York by Elliott Abrams, who was named a day earlier as the U.S. special representative for\u00a0Venezuela.\u00a0Abrams is a former assistant secretary of state for Latin America who worked at the White House when a 2002 coup in\u00a0Venezuela\u00a0briefly ousted Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez.<\/p>\n

On his first day on the job, Abrams met with exiled leaders of\u00a0Venezuela’s opposition. He also spoke by phone with Guaido, the leader of\u00a0Venezuela’s opposition-controlled congress. Abrams reaffirmed U.S. support for Guaido as interim president, said Kimberly Breier, the current assistant secretary of state for the region.<\/p>\n

The Security Council, the U.N.’s most powerful body, has not taken action on the Venezuelan crisis because of the divisions. The Security Council’s five veto-holding permanent members could not unite behind a statement on\u00a0Venezuela, presenting widely differing texts.<\/p>\n

The leaders of two of those council nations \u2014 France and Britain \u2014 joined Spain and Germany to turn up the pressure on Maduro, saying Saturday that they would follow the U.S. and others in recognizing Guaido as president unless\u00a0Venezuela\u00a0calls a new presidential election within eight days.<\/p>\n

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said that if there is no announcement of a new election in the next days, the 28-nation bloc \u201cwill take further actions, including on the issue of recognition of the country’s leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza dismissed the deadline.<\/p>\n

\u201cEurope is giving us eight days?\u201d he asked the council. \u201cWhere do you get that you have the power to establish a deadline or an ultimatum to a sovereign people. It’s almost childlike.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arreaza asked that someone show him where in\u00a0Venezuela’s constitution it says an individual can proclaim himself president.<\/p>\n

Guaido says he is acting in accordance with two articles of the constitution that give the National Assembly president the right to hold power temporarily and call new elections.<\/p>\n

While the council debated, a man identifying himself as\u00a0Venezuela’s military attache in Washington posted a video saying he had broken with Maduro and now would report to Guaido.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe armed forces have a fundamental role to play in the restoration of democracy,\u201d Col. Jose Luis Silva said in the video, which he said was shot at his office in the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, sitting in front of the nation’s red, blue and yellow flag.<\/p>\n

He called on other members of the military to join him in supporting Guaido, saying they need to avoid \u201cattacking\u201d protesters whose only aim is to feed themselves.<\/p>\n

Guaido celebrated Silva’s decision to defect.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe welcome him and everyone who with honesty want to follow the constitution and the will of the Venezuelan people,\u201d he said on social media after attending a small assembly in Caracas to discuss the opposition’s next moves.<\/p>\n

Garrett Marquis, a spokesman for U.S. National Security Council, encouraged others to follow Silva’s lead \u201cto protect constitutional order, not to sustain dictators and repress its own people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Venezuela’s top commanders have pledged loyalty to Maduro’s government in the days since Guaido declared himself interim leader on grounds that Maduro’s re-election last year was fraudulent \u2014 an allegation supported by the U.S., the European Union and many Latin American nations.<\/p>\n

But support for Maduro’s rule is weaker among the military’s rank and file, whose households are suffering from widespread food shortages and hyperinflation like their civilian counterparts. Last week, a small National Guard unit stole a stockpile of weapons in what it said was an attempt to oust Maduro. The uprising was quelled and 25 guardsmen arrested.<\/p>\n

The standoff has plunged troubled\u00a0Venezuela\u00a0into a new chapter of political turmoil that rights groups say has already left more than two dozen dead as thousands take to the street demanding Maduro step down.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Manuel Rueda reported this story in Caracas and AP writer Edith M. Lederer reported from the United Nations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CARACAS,\u00a0Venezuela\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Venezuela\u00a0defused a potential showdown with the United States, suspending a demand that U.S. diplomats leave the country as Washington called …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":153694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-manuel-rueda-and-edith-m-lederer","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}