CARACAS: Venezuela announced Saturday it had reached an agreement with Washington to accept additional deportation flights from the United States, one week after more than 200 Venezuelans accused of being gang members were sent to El Salvador.
The flights were suspended last month when US President Donald Trump claimed Venezuela had not lived up to its promises, and Caracas subsequently said it would no longer accept the flights.
But then Washington deported 238 Venezuelans accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump has designated a foreign terrorist organization, to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, a move deeply criticized by Caracas.
“In order to ensure the return of our countrymen with the protection of their human rights, we have agreed with the US government to resume the repatriation of Venezuelan migrants with a first flight tomorrow,” Venezuelan top negotiator Jorge Rodriguez said in a statement.
“Migrating is not a crime, and we will not rest until all those who want to return are home, and until we rescue our brothers kidnapped in El Salvador,” said Rodriguez, who is also the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly.
Sunday’s trip will be the fifth flight of migrants arriving in Venezuela since Trump took office in January. Since February, about 900 Venezuelans have been repatriated, most from the United States and some from Mexico.
Last month, Trump revoked permission for oil giant Chevron to operate in Venezuela — a blow to Caracas’s wobbly economy. The Republican president said Maduro had failed to accept deported migrants “at the rapid pace” they agreed to.
The countries broke off diplomatic relations in 2019, during Trump’s first term, after Washington recognized then-opposition leader Juan Guaido as “interim president” following 2018 elections widely rejected as neither free nor fair.
Maduro nevertheless maintained his grip on power, and Joe Biden’s administration relaxed sanctions on Venezuelan oil as part of a deal for American prisoners and a promise to hold free elections. Those promised reforms never came.
Washington did not recognize Maduro’s 2024 reelection win.
There had been glimmers of hope for the relationship at the start of Trump’s new term, with US envoys in Caracas for talks.
Then Trump invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act to target Tren de Aragua, and sparked anger by reaching a deal with Salvadoran leader Nayib Bukele to use the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) outside San Salvador.
And on Friday, the United States said it was revoking the legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, including from Venezuela, who had been granted entry under a plan launched by Biden in 2022.
They now have 30 days to leave the country.
Trump has pledged to carry out the largest deportation campaign in US history and curb immigration, mainly from Latin American nations.
More than seven million Venezuelans have fled Venezuela over the last decade as their country’s oil-rich economy implodes under Maduro.
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Venezuela agrees to again accept US deportation flights
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Venezuela agrees to again accept US deportation flights
- Washington deported 238 Venezuelans accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang
- “We have agreed with the US government to resume the repatriation of Venezuelan migrants with a first flight tomorrow,” Venezuelan top negotiator Jorge Rodriguez said
Moscow, Kyiv meet for US-brokered talks after fresh attacks
GENEVA: Russian and Ukrainian negotiators will meet Tuesday in Geneva for fresh US-brokered talks seeking to end the four-year war, hours after both sides launched a fresh wave of long-range strikes.
US President Donald Trump is seeking to position himself as peacemaker of the conflict unleashed when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, but previous rounds of talks mediated by the White House have yielded no breakthroughs.
Before the meetings began Ukraine accused Russia of undermining peace efforts by launching 29 missiles and 396 drones in attacks that authorities said killed one, wounded others and cut power to tens of thousands.
“The extent to which Russia disregards peace efforts: a massive missile and drone strike against Ukraine right before the next round of talks in Geneva,” Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga wrote on social media.
He repeated Ukraine’s call for allies to exert greater pressure on Russia to negotiate in good faith by applying more sanctions on Moscow.
The talks, which the Kremlin said will be held behind closed doors and with no media present, come after two earlier rounds held this year in Abu Dhabi.
“Ukraine better come to the table, fast,” Trump told reporters ahead of the negotiations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his team had already arrived in Geneva on Monday, while a source with the Russian delegation confirmed Tuesday that their team had touched down in the Swiss city in the early hours.
Russia meanwhile claimed to have repelled more than 150 Ukrainian drones mainly over southern regions and Crimean peninsula, occupied by the Kremlin in 2014.
Officials said an oil depot in southern Russia caught fire.
- Sticking points -
The war has spiralled into Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, with hundreds of thousands killed, millions forced to flee their homes in Ukraine and much of the eastern and southern part of the country scarred by war.
Russia occupies around one-fifth of Ukraine — including the Crimean peninsula it seized in 2014 — and areas that Moscow-backed separatists had taken prior to the 2022 invasion.
It wants Ukrainian troops to withdraw from swathes of heavily fortified and strategic territory as part of any peace deal.
Kyiv has rejected this deeply unpopular demand, which would be politically and militarily fraught, and has instead demanded robust security guarantees from the west before agreeing to any proposals with Russia.
Russia’s better-resourced army has been making steady gains across the sprawling front line in the eastern and southern Ukraine in recent months.
But Ukrainian forces have recently made significant battlefield gains, recapturing 201 square kilometers (78 square miles) last week, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War.
The counterattacks likely leveraged Russian forces’ lack of access to Starlink, which has disrupted communications, the ISW said.
The territorial gain is concentrated mainly around 80 kilometers east of the city of Zaporizhzhia, a region that Moscow claims is part of Russia, and where its troops have made significant progress since last summer.
The centrally located region hosts Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which Russia currently controls — another sticking point in negotiations.
For the talks in Geneva, the Kremlin has reinstated nationalist hawk and former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky as its lead negotiator.
“This time, we plan to discuss a broader set of issues, focusing on key ones related to the territories and other demands,” a spokesperson for President Vladimir Putin told reporters, including AFP, explaining the personnel change.
Kyiv’s team will be led by national security chief Rustem Umerov, while the White House is expected to dispatch Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
US President Donald Trump is seeking to position himself as peacemaker of the conflict unleashed when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, but previous rounds of talks mediated by the White House have yielded no breakthroughs.
Before the meetings began Ukraine accused Russia of undermining peace efforts by launching 29 missiles and 396 drones in attacks that authorities said killed one, wounded others and cut power to tens of thousands.
“The extent to which Russia disregards peace efforts: a massive missile and drone strike against Ukraine right before the next round of talks in Geneva,” Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga wrote on social media.
He repeated Ukraine’s call for allies to exert greater pressure on Russia to negotiate in good faith by applying more sanctions on Moscow.
The talks, which the Kremlin said will be held behind closed doors and with no media present, come after two earlier rounds held this year in Abu Dhabi.
“Ukraine better come to the table, fast,” Trump told reporters ahead of the negotiations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his team had already arrived in Geneva on Monday, while a source with the Russian delegation confirmed Tuesday that their team had touched down in the Swiss city in the early hours.
Russia meanwhile claimed to have repelled more than 150 Ukrainian drones mainly over southern regions and Crimean peninsula, occupied by the Kremlin in 2014.
Officials said an oil depot in southern Russia caught fire.
- Sticking points -
The war has spiralled into Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, with hundreds of thousands killed, millions forced to flee their homes in Ukraine and much of the eastern and southern part of the country scarred by war.
Russia occupies around one-fifth of Ukraine — including the Crimean peninsula it seized in 2014 — and areas that Moscow-backed separatists had taken prior to the 2022 invasion.
It wants Ukrainian troops to withdraw from swathes of heavily fortified and strategic territory as part of any peace deal.
Kyiv has rejected this deeply unpopular demand, which would be politically and militarily fraught, and has instead demanded robust security guarantees from the west before agreeing to any proposals with Russia.
Russia’s better-resourced army has been making steady gains across the sprawling front line in the eastern and southern Ukraine in recent months.
But Ukrainian forces have recently made significant battlefield gains, recapturing 201 square kilometers (78 square miles) last week, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War.
The counterattacks likely leveraged Russian forces’ lack of access to Starlink, which has disrupted communications, the ISW said.
The territorial gain is concentrated mainly around 80 kilometers east of the city of Zaporizhzhia, a region that Moscow claims is part of Russia, and where its troops have made significant progress since last summer.
The centrally located region hosts Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which Russia currently controls — another sticking point in negotiations.
For the talks in Geneva, the Kremlin has reinstated nationalist hawk and former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky as its lead negotiator.
“This time, we plan to discuss a broader set of issues, focusing on key ones related to the territories and other demands,” a spokesperson for President Vladimir Putin told reporters, including AFP, explaining the personnel change.
Kyiv’s team will be led by national security chief Rustem Umerov, while the White House is expected to dispatch Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
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