MINSK, Oct 21 Minister of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela Ivan Gil Pinto said that Caracas has always been interested in good relations with the United States as a neighboring state, but at times Washington has broken promises made during negotiations to normalize relations.
Earlier, the US Treasury announced the issuance of a general license allowing for six months some transactions with the oil and gas sector of Venezuela, as well as with the state-owned mining company Minerven. In addition, the Treasury lifted a secondary ban on trading in certain sovereign bonds, debt obligations and shares of PDVSA. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that the country has taken the first step towards lifting all sanctions imposed on it, and announced its readiness for a new stage of relations with the United States based on “respect, equality and progress.”
«As our President said, we have always negotiated with the US government. Taking into account various factors, sometimes moving towards the goal, sometimes very slowly. Sometimes the US has not done what it said. We have always been interested in maintaining good relations with such an important neighbor as the United States, and with any neighbor that we have,” the minister said in an interview with the Belarusian TV channel Belarus 1, commenting on media reports that the United States and Venezuela are close to concluding an agreement to revise sanctions.
«However, this process has come under attack from the United States itself. Today negotiations are underway, President Maduro announced this. He announced the signing of a migration agreement, the return of Venezuelans who are in the United States and are going to return to Venezuela. This has already begun, this is underway. In We will soon see results on other issues, which will be announced in due course depending on how the negotiations go,” Pinto said.
At the same time, the minister criticized a number of international organizations and financial institutions for following the interests of individual states. “The UN seems to be captured by the United States, which allocates the largest (contribution to its — ed.) budget and manages the institutions (organizations — ed.). Unfortunately, we see how these institutions have practically turned into appendages of the US State Department. This is very alarming , since these institutions are moving away from the tasks set by states,” said the head of the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry.
He called on the UN system to return to the «right path.»
“What we are seeing now in the world is the consequences of the weakening of the UN, the results of the activities of these agencies and funds, which are ultimately used by the United States and those who pay more money into the unified national system and blackmail with it,” said minister.
Against this background, he drew attention to the activities of a number of regional integration associations, for example, BRICS. “Their main role is to save humanity, exactly that. And humanity can only be saved if a new model of relations is created — a multilateral system that will really work. And these organizations are called upon to do this. We look at BRICS with great hope , ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the Americas — ed.), CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean Countries — ed.) — organizations based on complementarity and solidarity, other values, principles. It is also worth noting their economic orientation, but focused on the principle of solidarity, not on the principle of competition,» Pinto said.
According to him, organizations founded for purely economic purposes are beginning to decline. «The EU is one of them… today it is turning into a model that is becoming heavier and heavier, with which it is increasingly difficult to work, because the interests are economic and financial, and under the auspices of economics and finance there is little that can be united, because this is competition «We can work on the social principles of complementarity and solidarity, this is the way forward,» the head of the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry emphasized.