The Venezuelan embassy in Washington, whose staff supported the opponent Juan Guaidó, announced Friday January 6 its closure after the Venezuelan opposition officially put an end to the
"interim government"
of the latter.
Juan Guaidó declared himself interim president in January 2019, receiving broad international support.
The Venezuelan diplomats then stationed in the American capital, loyal to President Nicolás Maduro, had ended up returning to Venezuela after the Organization of American States had agreed to have an opposition envoy sit in their place.
The embassy building had then been occupied for several weeks from April 2019 by supporters of Nicolás Maduro, giving rise to tense face-to-face meetings with supporters of Juan Guaidó demonstrating in the street, until the eviction of the occupants by the police.
A “political, economic and moral error”
But Guaidó failed to oust Maduro, and the international support he enjoyed withered away.
At the end of December 2022, three of Venezuela's main opposition parties approved the removal of its
"interim government"
, which they had nevertheless supported when it was created in January 2019. Following this decision, the embassy
"and all its representatives have formally ceased to exercise their functions”
as of Thursday, the diplomatic representation said in a press release, assuring that it regretted that Venezuelan nationals in the United States were thus deprived of consular services.
The outgoing ambassador, Carlos Vecchio, in a statement regretted
the "political, economic and moral error"
made by the opposition in putting an end to the interim of Juan Guaidó, and considered that Nicolas
"Maduro
(was)
the alone to benefit from this decision
.
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