Akash Sama­roo

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is wel­com­ing the po­ten­tial talks be­tween Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Venezuela’s Nico­las Maduro. How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that any di­a­logue must be ground­ed in hon­esty and trans­paren­cy, rather than in the “con­tin­u­ous de­fence or de­nial of wrong­do­ing.”

The dis­cus­sion about pos­si­ble talks emerged in the midst of ex­treme ten­sion be­tween both coun­tries and the po­ten­tial for di­rect con­flict. Dur­ing a me­dia ex­change on Sun­day, Trump was asked, “With the des­ig­na­tion of that car­tel, as­so­ci­at­ed with Maduro, does that mean that the US Gov­ern­ment can tar­get Maduro’s as­sets or in­fra­struc­ture in­side Venezuela?” He re­spond­ed, “It al­lows us to do that, but we haven’t said we’re go­ing to do that, and we may be hav­ing some dis­cus­sions with Maduro, and we’ll see how that turns out. They would like, they would like to talk.”