President Donald Trump said he held \u201cvery positive\u201d talks Friday with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the crisis in oil-rich Venezuela, where Washington is pushing to oust the Moscow-backed president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US\n leader adopted a strikingly conciliatory tone following a more than \nhour-long conversation with Putin, coming days after an abortive \nmilitary uprising in support of Juan Guaido, the opposition leader \nseeking to drive Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump\u2019s\n tone came in stark contrast to that of his top advisors, in particular \nSecretary of State Mike Pompeo who charged this week that the socialist \nMaduro had been poised to flee to Cuba, but was talked out of it by the \nRussians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recognised as interim leader by more than 50 countries \nincluding the United States, Guaido has vowed to keep the pressure up on\n Maduro, urging his supporters to stage peaceful demonstrations at \nmilitary bases Saturday in a fresh bid to rally the armed forces behind \nhim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US-Russian tensions have spiked over the months-long \nstandoff in Venezuela, and the Kremlin\u2019s assessment of the Trump-Putin \ncall differed substantially from that coming from the White \nHouse.\u201cInterference in internal affairs, attempts to change the \nleadership in Caracas through force, undermine the prospects for a \npeaceful settlement of the conflict,\u201d said a Russian statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cVladimir\n Putin stated that only the Venezuelan people have the right to decide \nthe future of their country,\u201d it added.The United States has imposed \ntough sanctions and Trump has refused to take the threat of military \naction off the table, in an intensifying campaign to drive Maduro from \npower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Washington is insisting Maduro\u2019s days are numbered but \nexperts say US options for breaking the stalemate are limited, and that \nWashington may have overestimated the opposition leader\u2019s \nstrength.Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan hosted Pompeo at the \nPentagon Friday along with National Security Advisor John Bolton and \nAdmiral Craig Faller, commander of the US Southern Command.\u201cWe have a \ncomprehensive set of options tailored to certain conditions and I\u2019m just\n going to leave it at that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guaido plans to have his supporters \nmass outside military bases on Saturday, and deliver a proclamation to \nthose inside, pleading with them to break with Maduro.Tensions in \nVenezuela have soared since Guaido, the 35-year-old head of the National\n Assembly, invoked the constitution to declare himself acting president \non January 23, claiming Maduro\u2019s re-election last year was \nillegitimate.On Tuesday the opposition leader called on the military to \nrise up against Maduro, and a small group heeded his call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But \nthe movement petered out with 25 rebel soldiers seeking asylum at the \nBrazilian embassy in Caracas sparking two days of protests during which \nfour people were killed and some 200 injured.The influential opposition \nfigure Leopoldo Lopez who made a dramatic appearance alongside Guaido \nafter being freed from house arrest has since taken refuge at the \nSpanish embassy.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Donald Trump said he held \u201cvery positive\u201d talks Friday with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the crisis in oil-rich Venezuela, where Washington is pushing to oust the Moscow-backed president. The US leader adopted a strikingly conciliatory tone following a more than hour-long conversation with Putin, coming days after an abortive military uprising in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60580,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60579","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\/60579","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=60579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60581,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60579\/revisions\/60581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}