U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed on Sunday that he recently held a phone call with his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolás Maduro, who accuses Washington of using anti-drug trafficking operations as a pretext to deploy large military forces in the Caribbean with the aim of ousting him.
اضافة اعلان
The United States has intensified pressure on Venezuela through massive military reinforcements in the Caribbean and Trump’s warning that Venezuelan airspace is “closed.”
Regarding the call with the leftist president—which The New York Times first reported—Trump said, “I can’t say it went well or badly. It was a phone call.”
The New York Times reported that Trump and Maduro recently discussed a potential meeting in the United States, while The Wall Street Journal stated on Saturday that the conversation also touched on conditions for a pardon if Maduro were to step down.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio said on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that the United States offered Maduro the option to leave the country for Russia or elsewhere.
The U.S. accuses Maduro, the political heir of the late leftist leader Hugo Chávez, of leading the “Soles Cartel,” offering a $50 million reward for information leading to his capture.
However, Venezuela and its allied countries insist that such a cartel does not exist.
Although Trump has not publicly threatened Maduro with force, he recently indicated that efforts to curb Venezuelan drug trafficking “by land” will begin “very soon.”
Since September, U.S. forces have targeted more than 20 vessels suspected of involvement in drug trafficking in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, resulting in at least 83 deaths.
(AFP)
