Rubio meets Venezuelan counterpart as US presses for progress on election preparations

U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio met with his Venezue­lan coun­ter­part in Wash­ing­ton on Mon­day as the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has stepped up ef­forts to press the in­ter­im gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion groups to make quick progress on prepa­ra­tions for elec­tions that could be held next year.

Ru­bio held talks with For­eign Min­is­ter Oliv­er Blan­co at the State De­part­ment just two weeks af­ter Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties and op­po­si­tion fig­ures agreed on a blue­print to re­form the coun­try’s elec­toral process to al­low for free and fair elec­tions to take place at some point in 2027. Nei­ther man spoke as they posed for pho­tographs ahead of their meet­ing.

In his last sig­nif­i­cant com­ments about Venezuela, Ru­bio said last week that the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, which oust­ed then-Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro in a Jan­u­ary mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion, would be watch­ing events close­ly and urg­ing all sides to com­ply with the new process. He said the goal is to help put in place a sus­tain­able elec­tion ar­chi­tec­ture that will give all par­ties con­fi­dence in the vote.

Mon­day’s meet­ing was one of the high­est-lev­el en­coun­ters be­tween a se­nior Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cial and a coun­ter­part from act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez’s gov­ern­ment.

Ro­dríguez met with Trump on the side­lines of the U.N. Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in Sep­tem­ber, while En­er­gy Sec­re­tary Chris Wright met Ro­dríguez and se­nior Venezue­lan of­fi­cials in Cara­cas in Au­gust to seal a mas­sive oil deal.

Ro­dríguez took over in Venezuela af­ter a sur­prise U.S. mil­i­tary raid in Jan­u­ary that cap­tured Maduro and brought him to the Unit­ed States to face drug traf­fick­ing charges, which he de­nies.

Ru­bio has met pre­vi­ous­ly with the speak­ers of the cur­rent and for­mer Venezue­lan par­lia­ment as well as op­po­si­tion leader María Co­ri­na Macha­do, who re­turned to the coun­try last month. —WASH­ING­TON (AP)

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Sto­ry by MATTHEW LEE | As­so­ci­at­ed Press