It is with re­lief that we ob­serve the re­cent as­sur­ances from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar that Trinidad and To­ba­go will not al­low its sov­er­eign ter­ri­to­ry to be used as a launch­pad for at­tacks against the peo­ple of our clos­est neigh­bour, Venezuela.

Equal­ly im­por­tant is her clear de­c­la­ra­tion that this coun­try is not blind­ly fol­low­ing the Unit­ed States, and that her gov­ern­ment does not sup­port any course of ac­tion that would bring harm to the Venezue­lan peo­ple.

Most no­table in her for­eign pol­i­cy state­ment on Tues­day was the Prime Min­is­ter's em­pha­sis on 'the peo­ple of Venezuela'.

Yet, it was her in­ser­tion of the be­low clause that gave rea­son for pause as she made a clear dis­tinc­tion be­tween “the peo­ple” and “the regime” in Cara­cas.

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment sup­ports the se­lec­tion of lead­ers through free and fair de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions,” the Prime Min­is­ter wrote.

That state­ment, and its seem­ing­ly de­lib­er­ate phras­ing, sug­gest­ed that, from the Prime Min­is­ter's per­spec­tive, the Nico­las Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion lacks de­mo­c­ra­t­ic le­git­i­ma­cy - a point that can­not be dis­missed, par­tic­u­lar­ly against the back­drop of an ex­pand­ing US mil­i­tary pres­ence in the re­gion.

This is pre­cise­ly where the am­bi­gu­i­ty in T&T's po­si­tion cur­rent­ly lies.

The Prime Min­is­ter needs to state plain­ly where she and her Gov­ern­ment stand re­gard­ing Pres­i­dent Maduro.

On­ly weeks ago, af­ter se­cur­ing the cru­cial OFAC li­cence from Wash­ing­ton for the Drag­on Gas project, the Prime Min­is­ter pub­licly de­clared that she was pre­pared to trav­el to Venezuela to lead ne­go­ti­a­tions on that vi­tal cross-bor­der de­vel­op­ment.

While she avoid­ed nam­ing him, the on­ly pos­si­ble in­ter­locu­tor for such talks is Maduro and his gov­ern­ment in Cara­cas.

With whom else, if not the sit­ting Venezue­lan pres­i­dent and his ap­point­ed of­fi­cials, did she in­tend to con­duct these high-stakes, na­tion-defin­ing dis­cus­sions?

By pre­sent­ing her­self as the one to lead ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar im­plic­it­ly ac­knowl­edged Maduro’s ad­min­is­tra­tion as le­git­i­mate enough to sit across a ta­ble with, ne­go­ti­ate with, and to fi­nalise bind­ing bi­lat­er­al com­mit­ments.

That ac­tion, in­tend­ed or not, car­ries po­lit­i­cal weight.

Of­fer­ing to per­son­al­ly en­gage the ad­min­is­tra­tive head of state for a for­mal agree­ment amount­ed to de fac­to recog­ni­tion of the regime’s le­git­i­ma­cy in that crit­i­cal eco­nom­ic con­text.

This ap­par­ent recog­ni­tion, dri­ven by eco­nom­ic ne­ces­si­ty, now sits un­easi­ly along­side a re­newed diplo­mat­ic cri­tique, and against the re­al­i­ty of sig­nif­i­cant US mil­i­tary as­sets in our wa­ters, which Cara­cas re­peat­ed­ly cites as ev­i­dence of an un­fold­ing regime change agen­da.

We can­not have it both ways, nor can our for­eign pol­i­cy rest on con­ve­nient, shift­ing in­ter­pre­ta­tions of sov­er­eign­ty and le­git­i­ma­cy.

The Prime Min­is­ter must there­fore put aside care­ful­ly cal­i­brat­ed am­bi­gu­i­ties.

It is in­cum­bent on her to speak clear­ly and un­am­bigu­ous­ly to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and to the wider re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, about her gov­ern­ment’s pre­cise po­si­tion on Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro.

We are en­tire­ly clear on how she views the peo­ple of Venezuela.

How­ev­er, her re­fusal thus far to an­swer the straight­for­ward ques­tion - “Do you recog­nise Maduro?” - has cre­at­ed un­nec­es­sary un­cer­tain­ty.

Once she clar­i­fies that po­si­tion, an even more con­se­quen­tial ques­tion fol­lows: Does her ref­er­ence to “free and fair de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions” sig­nal sup­port for a peace­ful, elec­toral tran­si­tion with­in Venezuela, or does it align her more close­ly with a US-backed ef­fort to ush­er in lead­er­ship change?

Per­sad-Bisses­sar's em­pa­thy for the Venezue­lan peo­ple is not in doubt.

It is her po­si­tion on the Pres­i­dent and gov­ern­ment of Venezuela, how­ev­er, where ab­solute clar­i­ty is need­ed.