Venezuela declares Kamla persona grata

Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez has con­firmed that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is per­sona gra­ta in Venezuela, sig­nalling a sig­nif­i­cant shift in re­la­tions be­tween the two neigh­bour­ing coun­tries.

The con­fir­ma­tion came dur­ing a meet­ing be­tween Ro­driguez and Per­sad-Bisses­sar at the Per­ma­nent Mis­sion of Venezuela to the Unit­ed Na­tions in New York on Wednes­day, on the mar­gins of the 81st ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

Ac­cord­ing to a joint state­ment is­sued by the Gov­ern­ments of Venezuela and Trinidad and To­ba­go, the two lead­ers held a cor­dial work­ing meet­ing which her­ald­ed “the be­gin­ning of a new era in bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions”.

The state­ment said the lead­ers reaf­firmed the his­tor­i­cal bonds of friend­ship and co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the two coun­tries and com­mit­ted to con­sol­i­dat­ing the bi­lat­er­al agen­da based on mu­tu­al re­spect, sov­er­eign­ty, good neigh­bourli­ness, di­a­logue and co­op­er­a­tion.

They agreed on a work agen­da cov­er­ing trade, en­er­gy, se­cu­ri­ty, dis­as­ter risk man­age­ment, en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, agri­cul­ture, tourism, air con­nec­tiv­i­ty and cul­ture.

Ro­driguez al­so ex­pressed the grat­i­tude of the Venezue­lan peo­ple to the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go for ex­pres­sions of sol­i­dar­i­ty fol­low­ing the earth­quakes of June 24, 2026.

The lead­ers fur­ther agreed to main­tain a di­rect con­sul­ta­tion mech­a­nism at the high­est lev­el and will pay of­fi­cial vis­its to Cara­cas and Port of Spain.

The joint state­ment specif­i­cal­ly said, “The Venezue­lan side in­di­cat­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter was in­deed Per­sona Gra­ta in Venezuela.”

That marks a re­ver­sal from Oc­to­ber 28, 2025, when Venezuela’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly de­clared Per­sad-Bisses­sar per­sona non gra­ta. The de­c­la­ra­tion came amid height­ened ten­sions be­tween Cara­cas and Port of Spain and was linked by the Venezue­lan leg­is­la­ture to its op­po­si­tion to US mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Venezuela ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of adopt­ing what it de­scribed as a “war-mon­ger­ing” po­si­tion by al­low­ing the ex­er­cis­es, which Cara­cas viewed as a threat to Venezuela.

The Venezue­lan leg­is­la­ture al­so called on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment to dis­tance it­self from what it de­scribed as mil­i­tary provo­ca­tions in the Caribbean.

The lat­est meet­ing and joint state­ment in­di­cate a re­newed ef­fort by both gov­ern­ments to strength­en bi­lat­er­al ties.

The two lead­ers said they were de­ter­mined to pro­mote friend­ship, good neigh­bourli­ness, trust and co­op­er­a­tion, while cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for de­vel­op­ment and well-be­ing for the peo­ples of both coun­tries and con­tribut­ing to peace, sta­bil­i­ty and pros­per­i­ty in the Caribbean.