Sweden is hosting talks between major global powers with stakes in dealing with Venezuela’s political turmoil, the latest effort to jumpstart flagging attempts to find a peaceful solution to the national crisis.
A European diplomat on Thursday said that representatives of Russia, the UN, the Vatican, Cuba and the EU were attending the Stockholm meeting.
A US official with knowledge of the discussions said that the US was invited, but decided against participating.
Photo: AP
“The talks in Stockholm are for backing the Norway dialogue,” the European diplomat said, referring to talks in Oslo between the Venezuelan government and opposition that have stalled in recent days.
“All parties feel the need to keep as low key as possible because the mediation is going through a delicate phase,” the diplomat said.
The Stockholm meeting comes as a growing chorus of international actors press for a mediated solution to end Venezuela’s power struggle.
Venezuelan National Assembly President Juan Guaido has channeled the frustrations of angry Venezuelans suffering from food shortages made worse by punishing US oil sanctions, but has been unable to weaken Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s grip on power and sway over the all-power military.
Guaido in brief comments during a tour of the western state of Merida told a crowd that Venezuela’s crisis was being discussed in Stockholm, but offered no details.
“This meeting shows clearly that there’s consensus in the world for new presidential elections,” Guaido said.
However, another European diplomat with knowledge of the talks downplayed any hopes for an immediate breakthrough.
He described the one-off meeting as more of an ice-breaking session aimed at sitting around the same table a number of external actors who can contribute to reconciliation efforts inside Venezuela.
To ease tensions, Guaido or Maduro were intentionally marginalized from the meeting, said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were supposed to be private.
The original aim of the organizers was to court Russia with the understanding that Maduro’s main military and financial backer is key to any solution to the stalemate.
A Venezuelan government source with knowledge of the talks characterized them as a waste of time, saying only low-level diplomats attended.
A spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the talks and said Moscow was being represented by Alexander Shchetinin, head of the ministry’s South America department.
Enrique Iglesias, a veteran Uruguayan diplomat recently appointed as the EU’s special envoy for Venezuela, was also participating in the meeting, according to one of the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue.
Norway has sponsored two rounds of exploratory talks in recent weeks aimed at bringing the two sides together.
Precious little about the talks has emerged.
However, under pressure from hardliners inside the opposition coalition, Guaido last week said that he would not partake in any more talks with government unless it yields to their demand for presidential elections.
About 50 nations, including the US, consider Venezuela’s presidential election last year illegitimate, in large part because strong opponents of Maduro were banned from running or exiled.
Maduro has stood by the validity of his re-election last year, showing no sign that he intends to go back to campaigning any time soon.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
RSS