Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is accusing United States of pressuring for the country’s coup, with the imposing of sanctions against Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA, announced in a press briefing Monday in Washington.
Maduro later that Monday evening, during a televised speech, said, “I can say that Washington’s response in the first place was always the same (…) financial diplomatic persecutions and rejection.
“Last Saturday we reached an agreement with the Government of Donald Trump, in an exchange of official and diplomatic documents, establishing a negotiation to leave open our offices of interests,” he said.
However, during Monday’s press briefing, the first held in over month during the partial shutdown of the U.S. government, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton announced a new set of sanctions against the Maduro government, which includes a block of US$7 billion in PDVSA assents and “only select transactions and activities with the Venezuelan oil company will also be permitted to continue for a limited time”.
The U.S. is also targeting Venezuelan state employees working in the country’s oil sector, pressuring the country to accept the U.S.-backed, self-imposed President Juan Guaido.
During the televised address, President Maduro said, “The US today decided to go the illegal way by stealing Citgo from Venezuela. Since I assumed to this day the message to the United States has always been one: dialogue, respect, non-interventionism towards Venezuela and the response from Washington was always the same: contempt, underestimation and aggression,” Maduro said, denouncing the sanctions as a “robbery” and revealing his plans to take legal action against the United States.
However, the Maduro told the crowds that he was willing to reinitiate negotiations with the opposition leaders to resolve the issues and bring about peace in the nation.
“I am ready once more to start a round of talks, dialogue, negotiations with all the Venezuelan opposition, with only one objective: peace, understanding, mutual recognition,” he said.
