Canadian foreign minister Cuba bound for Venezuela talks

Canadian Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland, announced on Thursday. August 22 that she will head to Cuba next week to discuss the crisis in Venezuela and Havana’s support for the besieged Nicolás Maduro regime.

Freeland will meet on August 28 with her  Cuban peer Bruno Rodríguez, with whom she has already discussed the issue in  June in Toronto.

“We believe it is important to explore all possible paths to a resolution of the situation (in Venezuela),” Freeland said at a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in  Ottawa.

“With that in mind, I will travel to Cuba next week for a bilateral meeting with the Cuban Foreign Minister,” she said..

Canada supports, along with the United States and fifty countries, the parliamentary leader  Juan Guaidó, who was proclaimed in January interim president with a view to promoting the departure of the “usurper” president and Organize new elections.

Cuba is one of Maduro’s strongest allies, still clinging to power despite international pressure led by Washington.

Pompeo commented: “We have always said that there can be no free and fair elections while Maduro is in power. And we continue working to achieve that goal on behalf of the Venezuelan people.” 

The Freeland office said the visit to Cuba will address several urgent issues, including humanitarian aid to Venezuela and purchases of Venezuelan oil from the Caribbean island.

Canada has a prominent role in the Lima Group, a block of a dozen American countries created to find a solution to the Venezuelan crisis, in which the United States does not participate.

Freeland has claimed before that Cuba had “a role to play” in finding a peaceful solution to the crisis in Venezuela.