A major bloc of Latin American nations and Canada will discuss on Monday how to maintain pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to hold new elections as he faces widespread calls to resign after last year\u2019s disputed presidential vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sources briefed on the matter said that the 14-nation Lima Group looked set, though, to hold off imposing further sanctions on the Maduro government when it meets in Ottawa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most group members say Maduro should quit in favor of opposition leader Juan Guaido who declared himself interim president last month – and are calling for a new presidential election in the troubled OPEC nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow can we continue to support the opposition to keep the pressure up on the regime and push for new elections? Certainly that\u2019s something we\u2019ll be looking at,\u201d said a Canadian government official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Monday\u2019s meeting in Ottawa will also discuss how to aid the people of Venezuela, including through immediate humanitarian assistance, said the office of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.Last month, the Lima Group announced a travel ban on senior Venezuelan officials and a freeze on their foreign assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maduro, who has overseen an economic collapse and the exodus of millions of Venezuelans, said in an interview that aired on Spanish television channel Antena 3 on Sunday: \u201cWe don\u2019t accept ultimatums from anyone,\u201d adding: \u201cI refuse to call for elections now – there will be elections in 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Canadian source, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation, declined to comment when asked whether more punitive measures could be imposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two sources briefed on the talks said such an announcement was unlikely for now.The challenge for participants is that Mexico, a member of the Lima Group, opposes any measures to oust Maduro, who also has the backing of Russia, China and Turkey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A major bloc of Latin American nations and Canada will discuss on Monday how to maintain pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to hold new elections as he faces widespread calls to resign after last year\u2019s disputed presidential vote. Sources briefed on the matter said that the 14-nation Lima Group looked set, though, to hold […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54155,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54156,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54154\/revisions\/54156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}