Lec­tur­er at the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, Dr Michał Paw­ińs­ki, says the ver­sion of what hap­pened in a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion be­tween US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro so­lid­i­fies that there is no ease in ten­sion be­tween the two coun­tries.

Ear­li­er this week, Trump con­firmed he had a phone con­ver­sa­tion with Maduro but did not dis­close the de­tails. How­ev­er, re­ports sug­gest Maduro dis­cussed a deal that would see him step down in ex­change for help for him and his fam­i­ly.

Speak­ing dur­ing the event on Wednes­day, which was tele­vised live, Maduro said, “If this call means steps are be­ing tak­en to­ward a re­spect­ful di­a­logue be­tween our coun­tries, then di­a­logue is wel­come, diplo­ma­cy is wel­come.”