The United States has appointed an experienced diplomat as its top envoy to Venezuela, the US embassy in Caracas said on its website, Reuters reported.
Laura Dogu, who previously served as ambassador to Honduras and Nicaragua, will serve as acting charge d'affaires for Venezuela, based at the embassy in Bogota, the website said.
Dogu takes over after the US captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a raid earlier this month and took him to New York to face drug trafficking charges.
„The Trump administration continues to work with interim authorities to stabilize Venezuela as part of a three-phase plan that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has presented to Congress and the American people,” a senior State Department official said.
“This plan calls for a full-time acting U.S. representative in the Venezuelan Affairs Section, located at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota. Ambassador Dogu is well-positioned to lead the team during this transition period,” he added.
Earlier this month, the United States began preparations in case President Donald Trump decides to reopen the U.S. Embassy in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.
A State Department spokesman said at the time that U.S. diplomats and security officials traveled to Caracas on Jan. 9 to assess a “potential phased reopening” of the embassy there.
In 2019, the United States withdrew all of its diplomatic staff from Venezuela, citing the worsening situation in the country after months of “political unrest“.
Meanwhile, Venezuela's parliament approved on first reading a law that fully opens oil production to the private sector. Until now, this was reserved for state-owned or mixed enterprises in which the state owned a majority stake. The new law stipulates that “private companies registered in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela“ will be able to exploit deposits after signing contracts.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington welcomed Iraq's initiative to detain “Islamic State“ fighters in secure facilities on its territory, while calling on countries around the world to repatriate their citizens to these sites “to face justice“, Reuters reported.
“The United States welcomes the Iraqi government's initiative to detain terrorists from "Islamic State" in secure facilities in Iraq following recent instability in northeastern Syria, Rubio said in a statement.
"Non-Iraqi terrorists will be temporarily in Iraq. The United States calls on countries to take responsibility and repatriate their citizens to these facilities so they can face justice," Rubio said in a statement.
Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council said on Tuesday it would begin legal proceedings against detained Islamic State members transferred from Syria, a day after the U.S. military said its forces had transferred 150 suspected fighters from Syria to Iraq. The U.S. military said its operation could eventually lead to the removal of 7,000 detainees from Syria.
The U.N. said it was taking responsibility for running vast camps in Syria where are housing tens of thousands of women and children associated with the “Islamic State“ after the rapid collapse of the Kurdish-led forces that had protected them for years.
Iraq has begun accepting detainees transferred from prisons in Syria as the Kurds withdraw and has called on other countries to help accommodate them.
“This is a critical part of a long-term framework to prevent the resurgence of “Islamic State“ consistent with proper burden-sharing among coalition members,“ Rubio said.
More than 10,000 “Islamic State“ members and tens of thousands of women and children associated with them have been held for years in a dozen prisons and detention camps guarded by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria. Syria.
The SDF were forced to withdraw this week after clashes with Syrian government forces, raising concerns about security and humanitarian conditions in prisons.