Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said on Thursday that the regional summit he proposed to hold in his country to address the post-election crisis in Venezuela could be held next week but in the Dominican Republic, taking advantage of the presence of the presidents there for the inauguration of Luis Abinader for a second term.
“That meeting that I am trying to hold, we already have 6-7 confirmed presidents who would come to Panama, however, all or almost all of us will coincide in the Dominican Republic next Thursday and Friday for the swearing-in of President Abinader for the second time and perhaps, with President Abinader’s permission, we can have the meeting there,” said Mulino during his weekly appearance before the press.
Mulino said that the idea is that the 17 governments that voted in the Organization of American States (OAS) on July 31 in favor of a resolution that asked the Venezuelan authorities to publish “immediately” the minutes of the elections of July 28, an initiative that ultimately did not prosper, which the Panamanian president then described as “depressing.”
The 17 countries that voted in favor of the resolution were Argentina, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, the United States, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Suriname and Uruguay.
The purpose of the meeting of presidents is to keep the issue of Venezuela “current on the international agenda of the countries” and to help resolve the crisis in light of the failure of the OAS, without any desire for prominence on the part of the Panamanian government, said Mulino.
The meeting could take place in “the Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica, wherever it has to be, it is not a question of appearances, it is a question of a solution,” the president stressed.
Mulino supports mediation by Brazil, Mexico and Colombia
The President of Panama expressed his support for the mediation led by Colombia, Brazil and Mexico to try to overcome the crisis caused by the Venezuelan presidential elections and the allegations of fraud following the proclamation of Nicolás Maduro as re-elected head of state.
Mulino joined the recognition of opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia as the legitimate president-elect of Venezuela last Friday, after the National Electoral Center (CNE) of the South American nation declared Maduro the winner without presenting the electoral records that would support him.
“I see the efforts of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil as positive, even though they did not vote or abstained in the OAS (…) They are countries that have, for reasons that need not be explained, a closer relationship or governments closer to the Maduro government,” said Mulino.
The Panamanian head of state said he was sure that the presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia “are also concerned” about the Venezuelan situation and do not want, like Panama and other countries on the continent, “any future for Venezuela other than getting the country back on a democratic path and normalizing life in the region, which is tangled and turned into a disaster.”
“And what I mean by this is that 17 countries that voted in one direction in the OAS, and these three countries that can and I believe are doing so, play a friendly mediator role, we do not exclude each other. We both want democracy, peace and constitutional order to prevail in Venezuela,” he added.
Panama City / EFE
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2024-08-10 04:22:30
