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Bloomberg
Venezuelan officials have been holding “secret meetings†with “high-ranking†US counterparts for months, president Nicolas Maduro said.
“There have been contacts with high-ranking US government officials in the Trump
administration and my government under my express authorisation to try resolving the conflict,†Maduro said in a speech broadcast on state television. Maduro said he was ready to speak directly with President Donald Trump about Venezuela. He gave no further details on the meetings.
Venezuela Socialist Party Vice President Diosdado Cabello denied an AP report that he met secretly with a US
intermediary. Meanwhile, representatives of Venezuela’s opposition who are participating in talks with the government are currently in the US to
meet with officials there, National Assembly President Juan Guaido said earlier.
Earlier this year, Guaido and other opposition leaders held secret talks of their own for two months with high-ranking officials in the Maduro regime, but, according to the Trump administration and the opposition, some reneged on a power-sharing deal at the last minute. Guaido and his team appeared outside a Caracas airbase before dawn, but the uprising sputtered hours later when top military brass ignored the call to abandon the regime and security forces retook the streets.