US Vice President Joe Biden urged Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to talk to his political opponents Wednesday, asserting that the Latin American country’s present turmoil was untenable.
Maduro defeated opposition leader Henrique Capriles by a razor-thin margin in last month’s election to replace the late leftist leader Hugo Chavez, a poll that highlighted a sharp split over the oil-rich nation’s future.
Capriles charges that the election was stolen, and deadly violence followed the disputed polls. Maduro has accused the United States of financially backing the Venezuelan opposition.
Maduro took a swipe at Barack Obama on Saturday, calling him the “grand chief of devils” after the US president declined to recognize his election win, but Biden gingerly suggested that Venezuelans are continuing to lose out.
“Any Venezuelan government has a basic responsibility, no matter who won, to allow freedoms of expression and assembly, to promote and protect people from violence, to engage in genuine dialogue in a deeply divided country,” he said.
“I can respectfully suggest that is not what is happening right now — a better path exists,” Biden added, explaining that the Latin American community as well as the United States “wants that dialogue”.
In his speech to the annual meeting of the Council of the Americas, Biden also announced he would travel to Brazil, Colombia, and Trinidad and Tobago from May 26.
Meanwhile, the White House said Chilean President Sebastian Pinera would sit down for talks with Obama on June 4, and Peruvian President Ollanta Humala would do the same on June 11.
Chavez, the most prominent face of the Latin American left for over a decade, was Venezuela’s president for 14 years before his death in March.
Maduro, a former bus driver and union organizer, was a member of Chavez’s inner circle throughout the late leader’s reign, serving as his vice president and foreign minister.
Biden urges Venezuelan leader to talk to opposition
