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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has announced that the country will resume talks with the United States after officials reportedly offered a new proposal.
On national television, Maduro said, “Next Wednesday, negotiations with the United States will resume.” This comes after US sanctions that kicked in on Venezuela’s oil industry right before the country holds an election that many claim will be rigged. According to Maduro, the proposal to hold talks came from Washington, and Venezuela took two months to deliberate resuming talks.

These upcoming discussions follow secret talks held in Qatar last year, where the US and Venezuela agreed on a significant prisoner swap. The US released Maduro ally Alex Saab, accused of money laundering. At the same time, Venezuela freed Leonard Francis, implicated in a major US Navy corruption scandal, along with 20 Venezuelan political prisoners and 10 US detainees.

In a brief statement, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said “I’m just not going to get into the specifics of our diplomatic engagements beyond just saying that in the context of Venezuela – you’ve heard us say this before – we of course welcome dialogue in good faith, and we support the Venezuelan people’s desire for competitive and inclusive elections on July 28.”