Foreign Affairs Minister defends government’s stance on Venezuela

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers has de­fend­ed the gov­ern­ment’s cau­tious pos­ture on Venezuela, in­sist­ing it is fo­cused on sta­bil­i­ty and a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic tran­si­tion, even as ques­tions mount over the Unit­ed States’ role in the dra­mat­ic ouster of Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro.

Speak­ing at Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress head­quar­ters ear­li­er to­day, Sobers em­pha­sised that the gov­ern­ment’s stance has not shift­ed, de­spite the dra­mat­ic turn of events in Cara­cas and the in­creas­ing­ly as­sertive pos­ture of the Unit­ed States.

“As it per­tains to the peo­ple of Venezuela, we’ve al­ways stood on the side of the peo­ple of Venezuela,” Sobers said. “We stand on the side of a safe, se­cure, trans­par­ent, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic tran­si­tion.”

He said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­mained de­lib­er­ate in her pub­lic re­marks, even as Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez, now act­ing in Maduro’s ab­sence, has been open­ly crit­i­cal of the Trinidad and To­ba­go gov­ern­ment.

“The Prime Min­is­ter has al­ways been ex­treme­ly diplo­mat­ic in terms of her use of lan­guage as it per­tains to the po­si­tion, the evolv­ing po­si­tion in Venezuela, and will con­tin­ue to do so,” Sobers said.

Pressed re­peat­ed­ly on whom Trinidad and To­ba­go now recog­nis­es as Venezuela’s head of state, Sobers de­clined to of­fer a de­fin­i­tive an­swer, ar­gu­ing that the is­sue was pre­ma­ture.

“As it per­tains to that par­tic­u­lar ques­tion, I re­al­ly don’t think it aris­es,” he said. “What aris­es is in terms of the tran­si­tion.”

He added: “We have to be ex­treme­ly care­ful in terms of what we see. We need to be very sen­si­tive and alive to the sit­u­a­tion as it evolves.”

Sobers al­so de­fend­ed the gov­ern­ment’s ear­li­er sup­port for US-led mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in the south­ern Caribbean, which Wash­ing­ton re­peat­ed­ly framed as drug in­ter­dic­tion ef­forts. Venezuela had long re­ject­ed them as a pre­text for regime change.

“Our po­si­tion still stands as it was be­fore,” he said. “The mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion with­in the Caribbean re­gion was based up­on transna­tion­al crime. That has nev­er changed.”

When chal­lenged about US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s pub­lic com­ments out­lin­ing plans for Venezuela’s oil sec­tor, Sobers said re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for that nar­ra­tive lay with Wash­ing­ton, not Port of Spain.