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| image Curtesy: Reuters |
The United States has lifted sanctions on Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodríguez.
The move comes less than three months after US forces seized the country's previous leader, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife in a military raid in Caracas and took them to New York to face drug trafficking charges.
In 2018, the United States placed Rodrguez, a close ally of Maduro who served as his vice-president, on the sanctions list, claiming that she undermined democracy. Days after the US raid, she was sworn in as interim president by the Maduro-supporting National Assembly, which swore her in. US President Donald Trump called her "a terrific person."
READ MORE: What happened at Maduro's second court appearance
Rodríguez welcomed her removal from the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List.
Those named on the list have their assets in the US blocked and US nationals are barred from doing business with them.
In a post on X, Rodrguez referred to the development as "a significant step in the right direction to normalize and strengthen relations between our countries."
The move demonstrated the progress that had been made "between our two countries to promote stability, support economic recovery, and advance political reconciliation in Venezuela," according to White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly. Kelly added, "As President Trump has said, Delcy Rodrguez is doing a great job and is working very well with the United States." Opposition activists in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, however, were critical of the move, arguing that the US should exert pressure on Rodríguez to release all political prisoners still held in the country's jails.
One of the most important demands that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made of Rodrguez following Maduro's removal was the release of political prisoners. While the National Assembly has passed an amnesty law and hundreds of detainees have been freed, prisoners' rights group Foro Penal says that almost 500 political prisoners remain behind bars.
The most recent indication that relations between Rodrguez's team and the Trump administration are improving is the lifting of sanctions. Earlier this week, the US officially reopened its embassy in Caracas, seven years after closing it.
In addition, a diplomatic team from Venezuela has been sent to the United States to reopen its embassy in Washington.
Numerous high-level US delegations have visited Venezuela in the months since Maduro's ouster to discuss expanding the US's access to Venezuela's oil and mineral wealth. However, critics of Rodrguez have lamented the absence of any talk of democratic elections. Opposition leader María Corina Machado, who has been living in exile since leaving Venezuela to collect the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded in December, met Rubio on Tuesday.
Despite having been sidelined by Trump in favour of Rodríguez, Machado struck an optimistic note, calling the meeting "excellent" and praising the US secretary of state's "dedication to democracy, freedom and Venezuelans' well-being".
Following the meeting, Rubio gave an interview to Fox News in which he insisted that the United States was making progress in Venezuela. Pointing to the three-pronged plan he said the US was pursuing, he assured viewers that Venezuela had moved into the second phase: that of recovery.
"A transition phase will ultimately be required. He stated that free and fair elections must occur in Venezuela "at some point." "It's not forever, but we have to be patient, but we also can't be complacent," he added, without giving an indication as to when elections might be held in Venezuela.
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