"By December, one American who was involved told the Guardian that Delcy Rodriguez told the US government she was ready: Delcy was communicating Maduro needs to go.' She said, I'll work with whatever is the aftermath,' another person familiar with the messages said. The sources say Marco Rubio, Trump's secretary of state and national security adviser, at first a skeptic about working with regime elements, came to believe that Delcy Rodriguez's promises were the best way to prevent chaos once Maduro was gone."
"The pledge of cooperation by Delcy and Jorge Rodriguez before the Maduro raid has not been previously reported. In October, the Miami Herald reported on abortive negotiations via Qatar, in which Delcy offered to act as a transitional government chief if Maduro stepped down. Reuters reported on Sunday that Diosdado Cabello,the powerful Venezuela interior minister, who controls police and security forces, had also been in discussions with the US at a point months before the Maduro operation."
Delcy Rodriguez, sworn in as acting president on 5 January, and her brother Jorge privately assured US and Qatari intermediaries they would welcome Maduro's departure and cooperate afterward. Contacts between US officials and Delcy began in the fall and continued after a late-November phone call in which Trump demanded Maduro leave; Maduro refused. By December Delcy indicated readiness to work with post-Maduro authorities. US officials, including Marco Rubio, judged her cooperation the best way to prevent chaos. Diosdado Cabello also engaged in earlier discussions with the US about possible arrangements.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]