Rubio meets Venezuelan counterpart as US presses for progress on election preparations

U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio met with his Venezue­lan coun­ter­part in Wash­ing­ton on Mon­day as the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has stepped up ef­forts to press the in­ter­im gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion groups to make quick progress on prepa­ra­tions for elec­tions that could be held next year.

Ru­bio held talks with For­eign Min­is­ter Oliv­er Blan­co at the State De­part­ment just two weeks af­ter Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties and op­po­si­tion fig­ures agreed on a blue­print to re­form the coun­try’s elec­toral process to al­low for free and fair elec­tions to take place at some point in 2027. Nei­ther man spoke as they posed for pho­tographs ahead of their meet­ing.

In his last sig­nif­i­cant com­ments about Venezuela, Ru­bio said last week that the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, which oust­ed then-Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro in a Jan­u­ary mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion, would be watch­ing events close­ly and urg­ing all sides to com­ply with the new process. He said the goal is to help put in place a sus­tain­able elec­tion ar­chi­tec­ture that will give all par­ties con­fi­dence in the vote.