Venezuela’s acting president sends message to US
Tehran - BORNA - Rodriguez, who had served as vice president since 2018, assumed the role of interim president after Maduro was abducted by US forces in Caracas and flown to New York to face charges of orchestrating a “narco-terrorism conspiracy.”
“President Donald Trump, our peoples and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war,” Rodriguez wrote on Telegram on Monday. “This has always been President Nicolas Maduro’s message, and it is the message of all of Venezuela right now.”
She also called for a “balanced and respectful” relationship with the US, urging the White House to work with Caracas on “an agenda for cooperation aimed at shared development.” Rodriguez affirmed the Bolivarian Republic’s right “to peace, to development, to sovereignty and to a future.”
The interim president had earlier demanded that Washington immediately release Maduro, while saying Venezuela would “never return to being the colony of another empire” or “return to being slaves.”
On Sunday, Trump warned Rodriguez she would pay a “bigger price” than her recently captured predecessor “if she doesn’t do what’s right.”
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured on Saturday during a US operation that included a series of air strikes in the capital city and several other states. Washington said on Sunday that the pair had been indicted in the Southern District of New York on charges including narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and weapons offences.
Maduro has repeatedly rejected claims that he has any links to drug trafficking, saying Washington is using the allegations as a pretext for regime change in Venezuela.
The latest US operation in the Latin American state followed decades of strained relations marked by deepening diplomatic rifts, sweeping unilateral sanctions, political confrontation and mutual accusations. Washington had refused to recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate president.