What be­gan as a ship­ment of food, med­i­cine and re­lief sup­plies to earth­quake-rav­aged Venezuela may have opened the door to re­pair­ing one of the re­gion’s most strained diplo­mat­ic re­la­tion­ships.

The hu­man­i­tar­i­an out­reach, launched af­ter the June 24 earth­quakes, re­sult­ed in an ex­change of let­ters be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Venezuela’s Act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez, a rare mo­ment of en­gage­ment af­ter months of diplo­mat­ic ten­sion be­tween the two neigh­bours.

An­a­lysts say the cor­re­spon­dence does not rep­re­sent an im­me­di­ate re­set in re­la­tions, but it could cre­ate an op­por­tu­ni­ty for both gov­ern­ments to be­gin re­build­ing trust.