5 things: Maduro criticizes the US for excluding him from the summit 2:15
(CNN) --
If you don't get an invite to the biggest party in town, act like you're too busy to care.
As US President Joe Biden greeted more than 20 Western Hemisphere leaders in Los Angeles, one of those excluded from the California meeting is holding his own high-level talks on the other side of the globe: Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro hastily flew to Ankara to meet with his counterpart from Turkey.
The Summit of the Americas, a triennial gathering of regional leaders from Alaska to Patagonia, which the US is hosting for the first time since 1994, is the Biden administration's strongest effort to push the US agenda in the western hemisphere.
But the organization of the summit has been far from perfect.
Nicolás Maduro meets with the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Ankara
The leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela were excluded from the meeting due to their autocratic governments and poor human rights record, prompting the leaders of several other countries to boycott the Summit in solidarity.
In the most notable defection, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sent lower-ranking officials in his place.
Cuba, which had been invited to previous summits in 2018 and 2015 and hoped to be invited this year as well, called its exclusion "undemocratic."
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Maduro also criticized the decision, but went further by calling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a visit that appears to have been arranged at the last minute.
Under Venezuelan law, the head of state must receive authorization from Congress to travel abroad on official visits.
The Maduro-controlled National Assembly confirmed the authorization Tuesday night, an hour after the presidential plane had landed in Ankara.
The main objective of the visit was clear from the beginning: Maduro is sending a message that, regardless of the exclusion of the United States, there will always be people around the world willing to receive him.
"Today I will have a busy schedule of meetings with the brother president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. [...] The voice of Venezuela is heard throughout the world," Maduro tweeted on Wednesday morning.
Thanks to the brother and President of Turkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for this emotional reception at the Government Palace.
We are very happy to meet again and to be able to review our agenda of cooperation and complementarity, in favor of the peoples.
pic.twitter.com/AbcnKO4VxP
– Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) June 8, 2022
Although Turkey is a member of NATO and an ally of the United States, it has also been a friend of the Venezuelan strongman.
Turkey has been a buyer of Venezuela's gold — some of it tainted with allegations of human rights abuse — since at least 2018, and Maduro and Erdogan have visited each other on multiple occasions in recent years.
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Maduro's visit also allows Erdogan to send a message that his country is independent and gets to make whatever foreign policy decisions it wants.
Conveniently, Russia also appears to be in the mix: On the same day that Maduro landed in Turkey, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was in Ankara.
Venezuela's president has been a staunch supporter of Russia's war in Ukraine, even as Washington considered allowing its oil back onto the world market to replace Russia's.
Although there has been no official statement as to whether the two sides met in Ankara, one can bet that the coincidence was not lost on Washington.
Joe BidenThe Summit of the AmericasNicolás Maduro