Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 18/Nov 21:10

Maduro tells Trump: Let’s talk face-to-face

VENEZUELAN President Nicolas Maduro has expressed a willingness to hold face-to-face talks with US government representatives as US-Venezuela tensions continue to escalate with the recent arrival of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford and its strike group in the Caribbean. Maduro made this comment on November 17 on his television programme Con Maduro, hours after US President Donald Trump said he was willing to speak with the Venezuelan leader, He claimed Venezuela had requested formal discussions. On whether he would speak directly with Maduro, Trump said, "I would probably talk to him, yeah. I talk to everybody," "Those who want to speak with Venezuela will speak – face-to-face," Maduro said. He added, "We reaffirm what the UN Charter, our Constitution, and our people say: Only through diplomacy should free nations understand each other. Governments must seek common ground on mutual interests only through dialogue." On November 3, the US State Department said it "intended to designate Cartel de los Soles", the Venezuelan drug trafficking gang as a foreign terrorist organisation (FTO). The State Department said it will not do this immediately but the move would become effective on November 24. The Trump administration has claimed Maduro is the leader of this cartel and offered a US$50 million reward for information leading to his arrest. In several of his recent public appearances, Maduro has addressed the US people directly, even speaking – and once even singing – in English. On November17, Maduro said "Dialogue, call, yes; peace, yes; war, no; never, never war." The Gerald Ford's strike group includes nine embarked squadrons of Carrier Air Wing Eight, Destroyer Squadron Two’s Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Bainbridge and USS Mahan, and the integrated air and missile defence command ship USS Winston S Churchill. The group's arrival adds to other forces already in the region such as the nuclear attack submarine USS Newport News and members of the 22nd US Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), which played a key role in the 1983 invasion of Grenada after then Grenadian prime minister Maurice Bishop was executed in an internal coup. The US military deployment began in August with the deployment of the guided missile destroyers USS Gravely, Sampson and Jason Dunham. The Gravely and the 22nd MEU visited TT between October 26-30. Members of the MEU are currently in TT conducting military exercises with the TT Defence Force as part of US Southern Command's Operation Southern Spear. US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the aim of Operation Southern Spear is to remove "narcoterrorists" from the Western Hemisphere. Since August, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has supported the US military deployment and echoed the Trump administration's position that the deployment is an anti-narcotics exercise. Persad-Bissessar welcomed the return of US troops to TT in a statement on November 16. In another statement on November 16, Persad-Bissessar reiterated TT will not be used by the US to launch an attack on Venezuela. She also reiterated TT is a sovereign state that does not “blindly follow the US or any bloc such as Caricom.” Persad-Bissessar has differed with other Caricom leaders such as Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves about the Caribbean being a zone of peace, since the US deployment began in August. She has also expressed support for US military strikes on alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean. The UN, European Union and other nations have claimed these strikes are extrajudicial killings. The post Maduro tells Trump: Let’s talk face-to-face appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.