Venezuela announced this Friday the start of a "diplomatic exploratory process" with the U.S., aimed at the "reestablishment of diplomatic missions in both countries" and to address the consequences of the "abduction" of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, captured last Saturday in a U.S. military operation on Venezuelan soil. The U.S. government confirmed to EFE that it has sent a delegation of diplomats in charge of relations with Venezuela to Caracas to explore the possibility of reopening the U.S. embassy in the South American country. "U.S. diplomatic and security personnel from the U.S. External Office for Venezuela (VAU), including Chargé d'Affaires John T. McNamara, traveled to Caracas to conduct an initial assessment with a view to a possible gradual resumption of operations," a State Department official explained. U.S. President Donald Trump said last Sunday, a day after the mission that captured Maduro and took him to New York to be tried for narco-terrorism, that Washington is already thinking about reopening the U.S. embassy in the Caribbean country. The Venezuelan government reiterated its international condemnation of what it called a "criminal aggression" against its territory, which left "more than a hundred civilian and military deaths," after the United States attacked Caracas and the states of Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira in an operation that ended with the capture of Maduro and his wife. In a statement, the Chavista administration now led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez confirmed, as previously announced by the United States, that a delegation of State Department officials had arrived in the South American country to conduct "technical and logistical assessments inherent to the diplomatic function." The embassy, located in Baruta, in the metropolitan district of Caracas, closed in 2019 after Maduro himself declared bilateral relations with the United States broken. Since then, Washington has managed matters related to the South American country from its U.S. External Office for Venezuela, which is located at its embassy in Bogotá. Likewise, it was stated that a delegation of Venezuelan diplomats will travel to the United States to carry out the "corresponding tasks," without further details or the date of departure.
