Maduro: Venezuela resumes negotiations with the United States

According to Webangah News quoted by Mehr News Agency, citing France 24, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced on the eve of the country’s presidential elections next month that the negotiations between Caracas and Washington will resume soon.

Maduro has said that Washington proposed negotiations and Caracas agreed to it after two months of careful consideration. He said in a television interview: Negotiations with America will resume next Wednesday.

France 24 claimed that the United States and Venezuela reached an agreement last year in secret talks in Qatar on a large-scale prisoner exchange with the mediation of Doha, and based on this agreement, Alex Saab, Maduro’s ally, who was accused by the US of laundering money for Caracas, was released.

Venezuela also released a refugee named Leonard Francis, who was at the center of the worst financial scandal in the history of the US Navy. The United States also suspended a number of sanctions imposed on Caracas after Maduro’s government and his opposition party agreed last October in Barbados to hold free and fair elections under the supervision of international observers.