Venezuela liberated on Friday (31.01.2025) to six US citizens who were arrested in their territory, who fly to the North American country along with the special envoy of President Donald Trump, Richard Grenelll, who reported the release, after his visit to Caracas, where he met with Nicolás Maduro.
“We start up and head home with these six US citizens. They had just talked to Donald Trump and could not stop thanking him,” Grenell wrote on the social network X, where he shared a photograph with the Americans inside a plane, No details about their identities.
Washington, who reiterated this Friday that he does not recognize Maduro as president, he previously clarified that Grenelll’s mission in Venezuela was “very specific” and aimed to achieve the release of US citizens detained in Venezuelan prisons, as well as get Caracas to accept flights of deportation of undocumented migrants.
According to the Independent Venezuelan organization American Citizens (IVAC), based in Miami, eight American citizens in Venezuela were computed, mostly since 2024.
“Open diplomatic channels”
After Maduro’s meeting with Grenelll at the Miraflores Palace -the Venezuelan government sedes, in Caracas -, the Chavista administration explained in a statement that one of the “various issues of interest for both countries” addressed was the situation of “US citizens Incorities in crimes in national territory “, as well as migration and the” negative “impact of economic sanctions.
In that pronouncement, Caracas expressed his willingness to maintain “open diplomatic channels” with the US, a country that Maduro “raised the construction” of a “zero agenda for a new beginning in bilateral relations”, broken since 2019.
In the hall where the meeting was held, with the flags of Venezuela and the US, there was also the president of Parliament and Chief negotiator of Maduro, Jorge Rodríguez, who represented the Chavista in meetings with officials of the previous US administration.
In parallel, Trump said Friday that he will not allow the purchase of oil to Venezuela as his predecessor, Joe Biden, who alleviated the sanctions scheme with the issuance of licenses to foreign companies, among them, the American Chevron, to operate in the Caribbean country, which has the largest proven reserves of crude.
MG (EFE, La Patilla)
