The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry has rejected this Saturday the extension of individual «restrictive» measures until November 2023 against 17 people linked to the government of President Nicolás Maduro, for «persistent actions undermining democracy, the rule of law and human rights».
Among the most prominent names are those of the Minister of Interior and Justice, Remigio Ceballos Ichaso; the former president of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena or the magistrate of the Criminal Cassation Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, Maikel Moreno.
Above all, the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Carlos Faría, has expressed his dismay at the fact that this extension was announced on the same day that the French President, Emmanuel Macron, «publicly expressed his willingness to support the negotiations between the Venezuelan Government and a sector of the opposition».
Government and opposition in Venezuela met on Friday in Paris, summoned by the French president, who wants to take advantage of the reconfiguration that is taking place in Latin America and force the parties to sit down to dialogue with a view to resolving a political crisis that has led the Ibero-American country to a dramatic humanitarian situation.
The framework chosen will be the Paris Forum for Peace in which a closed-door meeting is scheduled between the negotiators of the regime of Nicolás Maduro and the Unitary Platform, which brings together the main opposition parties, with the head of the Chavista National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, and the opposition chief negotiator Gerardo Blyde, at the head of the respective delegations.
«It is incoherent and constitutes a slap in the face of the French initiative called Forum for Peace», he has indicated.
«With this anachronistic decision, the intention is to insist on a completely erroneous strategy, with which the EU has not succeeded, in the last five years, in fulfilling its objective of overthrowing the Bolivarian Government nor to move our people away from the political course enshrined in our Constitution», denounced Faría.
In his note published on Twitter, Faría condemns the «illegal and criminal sanctions applied to the Venezuelan people», and guarantees that the country will continue «defending its sovereignty based on its constitutional principles».
«We repudiate the insane policy of resorting to these tools of political blackmail, contrary to democratic principles and instituting a dangerous practice contrary to the principles of International Law and peaceful coexistence between States,» he reaffirms.
