Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaido described his meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House as very productive.
Wednesday’s closed-door meeting, came a day after Trump invited Guaido to attend his State of the Union address before Congress and praised him as Venezuela’s “legitimate” President.
Guiado said, “On behalf of the Venezuelans we are here because on January 5, 7 and 15 we managed to resist the onslaught of a dictatorship, resist what was the attempt to take parliament by force”.
Guaido, who is also the President of Venezuela’s National Assembly, made the remarks shortly after meeting Trump, whose administration was the first to back him after he proclaimed himself Venezuela’s interim President January 23, 2019.
“We are reiterating all the time that we have the support of the world, which is not to Juan Guaido, it is to a cause, it is to democracy, it is to freedom, it is to the possibility of seeing a continent completely free, not giving refuge to terrorists, not giving refuge to drug-traffickers,” he added.
Earlier, Guaido met with Colombian President Ivan Duque at the presidential residence.
In an earlier post on Twitter, Guaido said he was grateful for Duque’s support and said the trip would “generate the conditions that will lead us to freedom.”
Last January, Guaido invoked the constitution as head of the congress and declared Maduro a usurper. But a year on Maduro remains in power, despite a U.S. campaign to cut off his government’s sources of financing by imposing sanctions on Venezuela’s vital oil sector, and Guaido’s attempts to encourage the military to rebel.
Earlier this year, Venezuela’s ruling Socialist Party seized control of the National Assembly and swore in an allied politician who defected from Guaido’s camp. Opposition lawmakers then voted Guaido in for a second term as Congress chief in a separate session.
(With inputs from agency)