Chilean Embassy in Caracas
chile foreign minister alberto van kalverenHe said this Monday that his government wants to have a “very good level” of relations with Venezuela and admitted that the fact of not having an ambassador to the country for five years was “a loss.”
“We have an interest in having a very good working relationship with Venezuela, effectively because we have many issues that are of common interest,” the foreign minister said in an interview with local radio station Cooperative.,
Chile has had no ambassador to Venezuela since 2018 and until now had only a business manager.
Jaime Gazmurri, Chile’s new ambassador to Venezuela
Chilean President Gabriel Boric last week appointed Jaime Gazmurri, a senator for 20 years and Chile’s ambassador to Brazil during the second term of President Michelle Bachelet (2014-2018), to the position.
“Not having an ambassador was a disadvantage for us. And we saw that in the case of the Venezuelan migrant flights, which required many high-level contacts,” van Kalveren acknowledged.
Following the May 2018 contested Venezuelan elections, conservative President Sebastián Piñera decided not to appoint an ambassador to Caracas as pressure mounted on Nicolás Maduro.
Pinera was one of the most active members of the Lima Group, a regional bloc created in 2017 to support the Venezuelan opposition and which has practically disappeared with the progressive wave that controls the region today .
Restoring ties amid migration crisis
Gazmuri’s mission is to restore relations between the two countries, which continue to deteriorate. Unlike other progressive leaders in the region, President Gabriel Boric remains highly critical of Maduro and human rights violations in Venezuela.
«We believe that a person like Jaime Gazmuri, who is a politician with a great career. A moderate person who inspires confidence in all spheres, is the most suitable person to assume this mission,” said the Chilean Foreign Minister.
Chile’s new ambassador arrived in Caracas, where dozens of Venezuelan migrants are stranded, as the two countries negotiate a solution to address the migration crisis on the border between Chile and Peru.
A delegation from the Chilean Foreign Ministry arrived in Venezuela two weeks ago to negotiate new manned flights. These are intended to repatriate migrants who cannot return to Chile or enter Peru due to lack of documents.
The first flight from the border city of Arica, some 2,000 kilometers north of Santiago, to Caracas left on May 7 with 115 migrants.
Chile, which has militarized its border since late February, recently tightened its policies against illegal immigration to try to stem a rise in insecurity. The situation has led to thousands of migrants trying to leave the country.
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