DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment has ac­knowl­edged the le­git­i­ma­cy of Venezuela’s cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion, sig­nalling a shift in its pre­vi­ous­ly guard­ed po­si­tion on the po­lit­i­cal cri­sis in Cara­cas.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s post-cab­i­net me­dia con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann’s, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers pro­vid­ed the de­fin­i­tive con­fir­ma­tion.

“We recog­nise Del­cy Ro­driguez as the in­ter­im pres­i­dent of Venezuela,” Sobers stat­ed.

The state­ment marks a de­par­ture from months of de­flec­tion by Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials on the is­sue of recog­ni­tion for Ro­driguez.

Ro­dríguez as­sumed the role of in­ter­im Pres­i­dent ear­li­er this year, fol­low­ing the ar­rest of Nicolás Maduro by the US mil­i­tary in a tran­si­tion that has since drawn vary­ing lev­els of in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion and scruti­ny.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was first asked on Oc­to­ber 2, up­on her re­turn to Trinidad and To­ba­go fol­low­ing a high-lev­el meet­ing with Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio, whether she recog­nised Maduro. The ques­tion, posed at the VIP lounge of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, drew re­sis­tance from mem­bers of her Cab­i­net be­fore she replied: “That ques­tion does not arise.”

A day lat­er, when pressed again on whether she recog­nised Maduro as Venezuela’s le­git­i­mate pres­i­dent, the Prime Min­is­ter de­clined to en­gage.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “That ques­tion does not arise with the great­est of re­spect. Da­reece (Po­lo) asked me that last Wednes­day night. The ques­tion does not arise. Can you ask me an­oth­er one, please?” she in­sist­ed.

Even af­ter Maduro was oust­ed on Jan­u­ary 3, the Gov­ern­ment main­tained its si­lence re­gard­ing the as­cen­sion of Ro­driguez to the lead­er­ship of her coun­try.

When asked yes­ter­day what had prompt­ed the sud­den change, Min­is­ter Sobers replied, “Well, it arose when you just asked.”

Notwith­stand­ing the for­mal recog­ni­tion, Sobers said ten­sions per­sist at the diplo­mat­ic lev­el.

He ad­mit­ted Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­mains des­ig­nat­ed as per­sona non gra­ta by the Venezue­lan Con­gress de­spite his ad­min­is­tra­tion's plans to dis­patch a high-lev­el del­e­ga­tion to Cara­cas to se­cure T&T's in­ter­ests in lu­cra­tive cross-bor­der gas fields.

“Cur­rent­ly, that is the po­si­tion by the Venezue­lan Con­gress. That is some­thing that is al­so un­der dis­cus­sion,” Sobers not­ed re­gard­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s sta­tus.

De­spite pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment’s in­sis­ten­cies that re­la­tions be­tween the two neigh­bours were sta­ble, Sobers ad­mit­ted there is room for growth, stat­ing that ties were “get­ting bet­ter day by day” and that “there can al­ways be im­prove­ments on friend­ships.”

The min­is­ter could not pro­vide a spe­cif­ic time­line for the del­e­ga­tion's de­par­ture but in­di­cat­ed the mis­sion would pro­ceed “in short or­der,” sup­port­ed by week­ly com­mu­ni­ca­tions with his Venezue­lan coun­ter­parts.