Mexico City: US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday that President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela had failed to negotiate in good faith with his political opponents and warned that the US Congress was moving to legislate economic sanctions.
“Regrettably, there has just been a total failure by the government of Venezuela to demonstrate good-faith actions,” Kerry said during a visit here. “What is important is for the Venezuelan government now to honour the dialogue process and to restore the civil liberties of opposition leaders who have been unjustly imprisoned.”
Kerry, who is making his first trip to Mexico as secretary of state, met on Wednesday with his Mexican counterpart, Jose Antonio Meade, and with Enrique Pena Nieto, the Mexican President.
Both sides sought to highlight promises to further economic and educational ties between Mexico and the United States. But the political crisis in Venezuela has been an increasing concern for American and Latin American diplomats.
Talks between Maduro and opposition leaders in Venezuela have been mediated by foreign ministers from Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, and a representative of the Roman Catholic Church. But the opposition last week said that it was postponing the dialogue, citing a lack of progress and questioning the government’s willingness to consider its demands.
A senior State Department official who is travelling with Kerry said it was urgent that the dialogue resume and that Maduro show flexibility.
“I don’t think we have months,” said the official who declined to be identified under the State Department’s protocol for briefing reporters. “I think we’re talking about days, or maybe weeks at the most, for some movement by the government.
“Or people will go back to being frustrated enough to want to go out in the streets again. That’s the fear. And meanwhile, the economic situation gets worse.”
In Washington, senators Robert Menendez, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Marco Rubio, who serves on the panel, have been pressing for sanctions against the Maduro government. By a vote of 13-2, the committee approved legislation on Tuesday that would impose sanctions — a travel ban and a freeze of assets in the United States — against individuals in Venezuela who are linked to human rights violations there.
In calling for sanctions, Menendez said the United States should not be a “bystander” while Venezuela’s president was going to “dangerous extremes to silence political dissent.”
Obama administration officials have opposed imposing sanctions at this time, saying they might upset the off-again-on-again negotiations and provide Maduro with an opportunity to cast the political crisis in his country as an example of American meddling. But the State Department has also sought to use the possibility of congressionally mandated sanctions as leverage with a Venezuelan government that appears indifferent to US entreaties.
“Our hope is that sanctions will not be necessary,” Kerry said at a joint news conference with the Mexican foreign minister, Meade. “The Congress of the United States is discussing those sanctions now. They have already passed some legislation reflecting that attitude. They’re moving it.”
Meade also urged that the dialogue between the Venezuelan president and his opponents be resumed in an environment “that is respectful of human rights.”
In Caracas, Maduro lashed out at the United States, accusing Washington of meddling in his country’s affairs.
“I reject, I detest the interference of these right-wing sectors of the United States in the internal affairs of” Venezuela, he said on Tuesday.
