Argentine President Javier Milei thanked Brazil on Thursday for its willingness to take over custody of the Argentine embassy in Venezuela, after the government of Nicolás Maduro expelled its diplomatic staff, after having questioned the results of the presidential elections on Sunday that declared him the winner.
“Today, Argentine diplomatic personnel had to leave Venezuela in retaliation by dictator Maduro for our condemnation of the fraud they perpetrated last Sunday,” he wrote on his X account on Thursday.
Milei said that, in this way, Venezuela will respect the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic and Consular Relations.
In recent hours, six collaborators of opposition leader María Corina Machado who remain in asylum in the Argentine mission, warned that hooded members of the Venezuelan security forces surrounded the embassy and expressed concern about the possibility of an assault on the headquarters.
On Thursday morning, the Brazilian flag was already raised at the Argentine embassy. The Voice of America was also able to confirm that there is no longer any presence of Venezuelan law enforcement forces in the vicinity of the Argentine mission.
Machado, for his part, thanked Brazil on Wednesday night for assuming diplomatic representation of Argentina in Venezuela, the protection of his headquarters and residence, as well as the physical integrity of six of his closest collaborators who have been in that embassy as asylum seekers since March, after arrest warrants were issued against them for allegedly organizing violent plans.
“This could contribute to advancing a constructive and effective negotiation process like the one Brazil has supported,” Machado wrote on Monday night in X.
The Colombian Foreign Ministry, for its part, reported that it has held talks with the governments of Brazil and Mexico “to create the necessary conditions and seek an agreement for coexistence and political peace” in Venezuela.
Protests were held in various parts of Venezuela on Monday in rejection of the election results that declared Maduro the winner, while the opposition claims to have the records that would declare candidate Edmundo González Urrutia the winner.
Maduro said Wednesday that the political parties that support him are ready to present “100% of the electoral records” that are in their hands and asked the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), considered by civil society to be an entity that is not independent of the judiciary, for an expert opinion on the elections.
Organizations such as the Carter Center, which deployed a technical mission to the presidential election, question whether this is an independent verification.
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