WASHINGTON, Sept 26 (Reuters) – US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he had spoken this week with Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez about elections.
“I did,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I spoke about elections.”
Rodriguez briefly met with Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday and praised him for restarting dialogue with Venezuela. It was her first visit to the US since American forces captured then-President Nicolas Maduro in a January raid.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week that Trump and Rodriguez discussed restructuring Venezuela’s billions of dollars in sovereign debt. Rubio also said Washington had pressed for political change.
In her speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Rodriguez said elections would be held as part of a transition to “full democracy.” She left with photographs of herself alongside Trump but no firm election date has been announced.
Rodriguez came to power after Maduro’s capture. For nine months, Rodriguez has avoided giving signals about an election while US officials have tempered expectations by saying it would take time to materialize.
They have said that any political transition must be accompanied by economic and social stability.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Katharine Jackson, Leila Miller and Marianna Parraga; Editing by Sergio Non and Sanjeev Miglani)
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