US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has urged Venezuela to stick to a phased plan of stabilisation, economic recovery and political reconciliation before moving to democratic elections, Al Jazeera reported. He met Venezuelan Foreign Minister Oliver Blanco in Washington on Monday, nearly a year after US forces seized former president Nicolás Maduro in Caracas and took him to the US to face drug trafficking charges.
A State Department readout said Washington reaffirmed President Donald Trump's three-phase plan for Venezuela. Opposition leader María Corina Machado, who returned home last week, said Rubio had set out a sequence leading to presidential elections in 2027. The Trump administration has also made oil deals with the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez, including a September agreement giving the US a stake in about a fifth of Venezuela's oil resources through a joint venture.
Source: Al Jazeera
