New Head of US Mission in Venezuela Arrives as Ties Warm

AFP/APP

Caracas: The new head of the US diplomatic mission to Venezuela arrived in the country on Saturday and was welcomed by the South American nation’s foreign minister, as relations gradually warm following the ouster of Nicolas Maduro in a US military raid.

“I just arrived in Venezuela. My team and I are ready to work,” Laura Dogu said in a post in Spanish on the US Embassy of Venezuela’s X account, accompanied by photos of her disembarking from a plane.

Dogu, a former ambassador to Nicaragua and Honduras, was named last week as US charge d’affaires in Venezuela. A charge d’affaires serves as the head of a diplomatic mission in the absence of a full ambassador.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil received Dogu upon her arrival.

The meeting was part of an effort by Caracas to “define a roadmap on questions of bilateral interest” and to address existing differences through diplomacy, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

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The United States has already sent a mission to assess its embassy in Caracas, which has been largely unoccupied for the past six years.

The embassy was shuttered in 2019 shortly after Washington and other major powers declared Maduro illegitimate following a flawed election. Maduro then severed diplomatic relations with the United States.

US forces attacked Venezuela on January 3, capturing Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and transporting them to New York for trial on US-issued drug trafficking charges.

President Donald Trump has said he is now running Venezuela and has allowed Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, to serve as interim leader, provided she complies with Washington’s demands, particularly granting US access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Since 2019, the US embassy has been largely deserted, staffed only by a small number of local employees.

Since last year, the US charge d’affaires for Venezuela, John McNamara, has been based in neighboring Colombia.

McNamara traveled with other US diplomats to Caracas days after Maduro’s ouster to assess a “potential phased resumption of operations” at the embassy.

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Trump has said he was working “really well” with Rodriguez, and a US official has said she would visit the United States soon.

Reforms during Rodriguez’s first month in office have included a proposal for mass amnesty, plans to close the country’s notorious El Helicoide prison in Caracas, and the passage of a new law opening Venezuela’s oil sector to private investment.

US authorities announced on Friday that all Americans known to have been held prisoner in Venezuela had been released.

For years, Venezuela has routinely arrested foreigners and domestic opposition figures on charges ranging from espionage to plotting attacks — accusations critics dismiss as fabricated.

The Foro Penal human rights group counts more than 700 political prisoners in Venezuela, many of whom are held at El Helicoide, a facility denounced by opposition figures and activists as a torture center.

Rodriguez has ordered the prison to be converted into a “social, sports, cultural, and commercial center.”