Venezuela. Portugal recognizes “difficulties” but values developments
“AN The relationship between Portugal and Venezuela is this: we have difficulties, but we have valued positive elements of recent political developments”, requested the Portuguese Foreign Minister, in a telephone interview with Lusa on the conclusion of the work visit to New York, where this week the general debate and high-level week of the United Nations was held, the most important diplomatic week in the world.
During this week, Augusto Santos Silva met with Venezuela’s new foreign minister, Felix Plasencia, a former ambassador and deputy minister who was already known to him, “to maintain this contact [bilateral], which is always very important, given the size of the Portuguese community “in that Latin American country.
“We very much value the fact that the National Electoral Council was formed with representatives of the government and the authorities and we also very much value the fact that in the next changes in November, which are changed for governors and municipal authorities, to participate”, explained Augusto Santos Silva.
In the view of the head of Portuguese diplomacy, these “are positive signs for the intra-Venezuelan political dialogue”, to which is added an indication of election observation that the European Union is preparing.
In terms of the “security and well-being of the Portuguese and Luso-Venezuelan community”, which the minister stated as “the number one issue” in the policy with Venezuela, Augusto Santos Silva considered that “there has also been small progress”.
For Santos Silva this is “an evolution in the right direction”, which Portugal takes note of, moving away from the diplomatic “red line” that had been drawn for several years.
During the UN high-level week, in New York, the minister also participated today in a bilateral meeting with Mexico, “one of the main foreign markets for Portuguese companies”.
Augusto Santos Silva also had a meeting with representatives from Cuba, a country with which Portugal has “political and economic relations” and which the Portuguese minister likes “to hear in his assessment of the general situation in Latin America.”
The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Francisco André, who was also a member of a Portuguese delegation at the UN, presented meetings with several Caribbean countries.
Still on the Latin American region, the minister of Foreign Affairs participated in an informal meeting of the ministries of the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), as the central theme for a presentation of candidacies for the new secretary general.
According to Santos Silva, there are four candidacies: from Guatemala, Chile, Peru and Ecuador, and the idea is to decide which candidacy to present to the Heads of State until the meeting of ministries to take place in the Dominican Republic at the end of November.
A process that he considers “demanding”, because the choice depends on a consensus among the 22 member states.
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