Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­vealed that she spoke with Venezuela’s Act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez two days af­ter dev­as­tat­ing earth­quakes struck the neigh­bour­ing coun­try, as Trinidad and To­ba­go moved to launch a ma­jor hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­lief ef­fort.

The dis­clo­sure came in cor­re­spon­dence ex­changed be­tween the two lead­ers and re­leased by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter on Thurs­day. The ex­change fol­lowed a diplo­mat­ic note from the Em­bassy of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela to the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs on Ju­ly 13, trans­mit­ting a let­ter from Ro­dríguez to Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­press­ing the grat­i­tude of the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple.

The em­bassy said the cor­re­spon­dence con­veyed the “heart­felt ap­pre­ci­a­tion” of Venezuela for the sym­pa­thy, sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port ex­tend­ed by the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go fol­low­ing the earth­quakes on June 24.

In her Ju­ly 8 let­ter, Ro­dríguez de­scribed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sup­port as “a bea­con of hope in times of sor­row” and said it reaf­firmed that “the path be­tween na­tions is sol­i­dar­i­ty.”

Re­spond­ing in a let­ter dat­ed Ju­ly 14, Per­sad-Bisses­sar thanked Ro­dríguez for her mes­sage and re­called their tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion on June 26, dur­ing which she ad­vised that Trinidad and To­ba­go had ac­ti­vat­ed a ma­jor pub­lic-pri­vate sec­tor hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­lief ini­tia­tive for Venezuela.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the first ship­ment, com­pris­ing more than 230 tonnes of re­lief sup­plies, ar­rived at the In­ter­na­tion­al Port of La Guaira on Ju­ly 10.

She al­so said Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to work with Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties to fa­cil­i­tate the de­liv­ery of re­quest­ed vac­cines via Caribbean Air­lines and has ap­proved a se­ries of over­flight re­quests from sev­er­al coun­tries to sup­port in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­lief op­er­a­tions des­tined for Venezuela.

“As Trinidad and To­ba­go’s clos­est neigh­bour, Venezuela oc­cu­pies a spe­cial place in our re­gion and in our hearts. Please be as­sured that the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go will al­ways stand ready to sup­port the peo­ple of Venezuela when­ev­er they are con­front­ed by nat­ur­al dis­as­ters or hu­man­i­tar­i­an chal­lenges re­quir­ing as­sis­tance,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar wrote.

She added that the coun­tries’ shared ge­og­ra­phy, his­to­ry and long­stand­ing friend­ship call for com­pas­sion, sol­i­dar­i­ty and prac­ti­cal sup­port in times of ad­ver­si­ty.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so as­sured Ro­dríguez that Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains com­mit­ted to work­ing close­ly with the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment to sup­port the coun­try’s re­cov­ery and strength­en bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions.

“My Gov­ern­ment looks for­ward to part­ner­ing with the in­ter­im Gov­ern­ment of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela in the in­ter­ests of the peo­ple of both na­tions,” she wrote.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar end­ed the let­ter by as­sur­ing Ro­dríguez of her “con­tin­ued prayers and stead­fast sup­port to the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Venezuela.”

The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter said the ex­change of cor­re­spon­dence re­flects the long­stand­ing friend­ship and co­op­er­a­tion be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela as re­cov­ery ef­forts con­tin­ue fol­low­ing the earth­quakes.