Like with Cuba, US seeks 'common ground' with Caracas
Like with Cuba, US seeks 'common ground' with Caracas
“The U.S. remains open to further addressing our differences [with Venezuela] in attempting to find areas of common ground," said Secretary of State John Kerry at COA’s Annual Washington Conference on the Americas.
Washington (AFP) - Washington hopes its outreach to Cuba can be a model for Venezuela as it seeks to turn the page on old enmities in Latin America, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday.
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Ties with Caracas have been "severely strained" in recent years under both the late leftist firebrand Hugo Chavez and his anointed successor as Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, Kerry acknowledged.
But the top US diplomat insisted he had begun his tenure at the State Department in 2013 holding out a hand to Venezuela with a long conversation with the foreign minister at the time.
"The US remains open to further addressing our differences in attempting to find areas of common ground," Kerry told a conference of the Council of the Americas hosted at the State Department.
The US administration was "committed to moving forward on the path to normalized relations with Cuba after President Barack Obama in December swept aside 50 years of US policy to begin the process of restoring ties," Kerry said....
