from the Guardian
Before the US military snatched Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, earlier this month, Delcy Rodríguez
and her powerful brother pledged to cooperate with the Trump
administration once the strongman was gone, four sources involved at
high levels with the discussions told the Guardian.
Rodríguez,
who was sworn in on 5 January as acting president to replace Maduro,
and her brother Jorge, the head of the national assembly, secretly
assured US and Qatari officials through intermediaries ahead of time
that they would welcome Maduro’s departure, according to the sources.
The communications between US officials from Delcy Rodríguez, who was then Maduro’s vice-president, began in the fall and continued
after Trump and Maduro spoke in a crucial phone call in late November,
the Guardian has learned, in which Trump insisted that Maduro leave
Venezuela. Maduro rejected the demand.
By
December, one American who was involved told the Guardian that Delcy
Rodríguez told the US government she was ready: “Delcy was communicating
‘Maduro needs to go.’
“She said, ‘I’ll work with whatever is the aftermath,’” another person familiar with the messages said.
The
sources say Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state and national
security adviser, at first a skeptic about working with regime elements,
came to believe that Delcy Rodríguez’s promises were the best way to
prevent chaos once Maduro was gone...
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