Iván Duque, president of Colombia, affirmed this Thursday that Nicolás Maduro “is the Latin American Vladimir Putin”, arguing that he has generated the migration of more than 6 million Venezuelan citizens in the last 3 years.
Duque, prior to the meeting he will have with the president of the United States, Joe Biden, at the White House, assured that Colombia’s position will not change and will continue to alert to a political change in Venezuela.
He recalled, according to the newspaper Weekwhich have expanded the complaint once morest Maduro before the International Criminal Court for crimes related to crimes once morest humanity.
The Colombian government leads the opposition in Latin America to Maduro, whom it does not recognize and with whom it has not had diplomatic relations since February 2019.
The official agenda of the meeting between Biden and Duque includes topics such as regional migration, the promotion of democracy in the Americas, the recovery following the covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to the White House.
Do not “bitter” the Biden-Duque meeting
The United States trusts that its recent high-level visit to Venezuela will not “embitter” the meeting that Biden and his counterpart Duque will hold this Thursday.
A senior US official, who requested anonymity, spoke in this way regarding a topic that both presidents will probably discuss in their first official meeting in person, which will take place at the White House.
“I do not agree that this is going to make the meeting bitter,” the official said at a telephone press conference.
Colombia has shown signs of discomfort regarding press reports that Biden is studying lifting part of the sanctions on the Venezuelan oil sector that his predecessor, Donald Trump (2017-2021), imposed to contain energy prices following the Russian invasion from Ukraine.
In statements to the newspaper The Financial Times, Duque said this week that although it was not up to him to “judge” Washington’s actions, he remains convinced that Nicolás “Maduro is a war criminal” whom neither the United States. nor do many other countries officially recognize him as the legitimate president of Venezuela.