Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­scribed her re­cent meet­ing with act­ing Venezuela Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez as “very, very emo­tion­al,” say­ing she ac­cept­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to vis­it Venezuela af­ter the two lead­ers bond­ed in that ses­sion.

Speak­ing af­ter last night’s Na­tion­al Awards cer­e­mo­ny at Queen’s Hall, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spond­ed warm­ly when asked about Ro­dríguez’s re­port­ed ex­pres­sion of af­fec­tion dur­ing their meet­ing.

“What is my thought about ‘I love you’? I love her back,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She de­scribed the meet­ing at Venezuela’s Per­ma­nent Mis­sion to the Unit­ed Na­tions in New York as one marked by an im­me­di­ate per­son­al con­nec­tion.

“I don’t know, we just bond­ed and it was very, very emo­tion­al,” she said.

“Be­cause we have been neigh­bours for so long, I have said be­fore, we are fam­i­ly, and the feel­ing was mu­tu­al. I think we are all very hap­py that we can again work with our neigh­bours right next door and our fam­i­ly.”

She said she had al­so in­vit­ed Ro­dríguez to vis­it Trinidad and To­ba­go as both coun­tries seek to re­build and strength­en bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions.

“I have in­vit­ed Her Ex­cel­len­cy to Trinidad and To­ba­go. She has in­vit­ed me to come to Venezuela, so that will hap­pen. That is next,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the two gov­ern­ments had agreed to es­tab­lish del­e­ga­tions to ad­vance dis­cus­sions in sev­er­al ar­eas, in­clud­ing mul­ti­lat­er­al af­fairs, trade, en­er­gy, cul­ture and tourism.

“We will have a del­e­ga­tion, they will have one, and they will sit and work out the de­tails for those spe­cif­ic ar­eas of col­lab­o­ra­tion,” she said.

The meet­ing, held on the side­lines of the 81st Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, marked a sig­nif­i­cant thaw in re­la­tions be­tween T&T and Venezuela fol­low­ing months of diplo­mat­ic ten­sion.

In a joint state­ment is­sued af­ter the talks, both gov­ern­ments de­scribed the en­counter as the be­gin­ning of “a new era in bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions.”

The state­ment reaf­firmed the his­toric ties be­tween the two coun­tries and iden­ti­fied sev­er­al ar­eas for en­hanced co­op­er­a­tion, in­clud­ing trade, en­er­gy, se­cu­ri­ty, dis­as­ter risk man­age­ment, en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, agri­cul­ture, tourism, air con­nec­tiv­i­ty and cul­ture.

The Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude to the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go for their sol­i­dar­i­ty fol­low­ing the earth­quakes that struck Venezuela on June 24.

A no­table out­come of the meet­ing was Venezuela’s in­di­ca­tion that Per­sad-Bisses­sar is once again con­sid­ered per­sona gra­ta in the coun­try, ef­fec­tive­ly re­mov­ing a ma­jor diplo­mat­ic ob­sta­cle that had strained re­la­tions.

Venezuela’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly de­clared the Prime Min­is­ter per­sona non gra­ta in Oc­to­ber 2025 amid a pe­ri­od of wors­en­ing re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts have broad­ly wel­comed the diplo­mat­ic break­through while cau­tion­ing that its suc­cess will ul­ti­mate­ly be mea­sured by tan­gi­ble out­comes.