Trump claims he has cancelled second wave of attacks on Venezuela | US attack on Venezuela

Donald Trump claimed that he called off the second wave of attacks on Venezuela because Venezuela cooperated with the United States on its oil infrastructure and released political prisoners.

The US president said earlier on Friday that authorities in Caracas had released a “large number” of prisoners and canceled a planned military operation, acknowledging that he was “seeking peace”.

“This is a very important and smart gesture,” Trump said on social media. “The United States and Venezuela work well together, especially on rebuilding oil and gas infrastructures in a much bigger, better and more modern way. Because of this cooperation, I have canceled the previously anticipated second Wave of Strikes, which does not appear to be needed.”

Trump did not provide details about the alleged plan for new attacks, but said the US navy would remain in the Caribbean, leaving Washington with the opportunity to attack Venezuela at short notice. “All ships will remain in place for safety and security purposes.”

He said he would meet with American oil industry figures later Friday. “I will meet with all of them today at the White House. BIG OIL will invest at least 100 billion dollars.”

Previously, Venezuela announced that a “significant number” of detainees had been released.

But in the following hours, human rights organizations were able to confirm only about a dozen releases and are pressing the regime to release all political prisoners, whom they estimate number between 800 and 1,000.

According to the opposition statement, former opposition candidate Enrique Márquez was among those released from prison. “It’s all over now,” Márquez said in the video shot by a local journalist who accompanied him and his wife, as well as another freed opposition member, Biagio Pilieri.

Spain’s foreign ministry confirmed the release of five Spanish citizens, one of whom had dual nationality and was “preparing to travel to Spain with the help of our embassy in Caracas”.

Trump on Thursday said he plans to meet soon with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, following the Jan. 3 raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the threat of a ground attack against drug cartels in Latin America.

Since this operation the future governance of the South American country has remained an open question; Trump rejected the idea of ​​working with Machado over the weekend, saying he “doesn’t have support or respect at home.”

But in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, the US president said Machado would “arrive sometime next week” and added, “I can’t wait to say hello to him.”

Asked whether he would accept the Nobel Peace Prize if Machado gave it to him, Trump said, “I heard that you want to do this. It would be a great honor.”

This will be Trump’s first meeting with Machado, who said he had not spoken to the US president since winning the award in October.

Trump did not publicly make the same offer to Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez; but in an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday, Trump said the United States “got along very well” with Rodríguez’s government and that “they gave us everything we thought was necessary.”

The White House did not immediately respond when asked for additional details about the Machado meeting.

President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro said in an interview: In an article published by El País on Friday, during an hour-long phone call with Trump this week, “Trump told me he was thinking about doing bad things in Colombia. The message showed that they were already preparing something, they were planning this: a military operation.”

Asked if he was afraid of suffering the same fate as Maduro, Petro replied: “Undoubtedly. Nicolás Maduro or any president in the world can be dismissed if they are not compatible with certain interests.”

Petro addressed the crowd in Bogota last Wednesday at one of several demonstrations he has called across the country. Petro said the protests were a defense against Trump’s threats.

“But what we’re using here is popular defense, and that’s why I called for popular resistance on Wednesday,” he said, adding that he believed the White House’s threat to Colombia was “frozen” for now, “but I could be wrong.”

However, attacks against Colombian rebel groups in Venezuela are apparently not off the table. On Thursday, Colombia’s interior minister said that during a meeting between Trump and President Petro, the Colombian leader asked for US cooperation in fighting ELN fighters whose troops are on both sides of the border.

Speaking to local radio station Blu Radio, Petro asked if the US could “help hit the ELN hard at the border because when we attack they always end up in Venezuela and there have been times when Venezuela has helped and sometimes it hasn’t.” “They agreed to conduct joint operations against the ELN.”

In recent days, defense minister Pedro Sánchez has begun calling the ELN, the Spanish acronym for the 6,000-strong National Liberation Army, a “cartel.” Although the group was born as a Cuban-inspired leftist guerrilla force in the 1960s, it has since become deeply involved in Colombia’s drug trade.

Meanwhile, the leader of a group of dissident Farc rebels called on different “rebel” forces in Colombia, including the ELN, to unite against US aggression. “We are heirs of the same cause. The shadow of the intervening eagle hovers over us all in the same way,” the leader, known as Iván Mordisco, said in a video address posted on YouTube. “Let’s form a great rebel bloc to push back the enemies of the great homeland.”

Trump told Fox News it will take time for Venezuela to be able to hold elections.

U.S. attacks on drug boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea have killed more than 100 people since they began in September. They formed part of a concerted pressure campaign against Maduro that culminated in his dramatic abduction by US forces.

It is understood the US launched an attack on a docking area in Venezuela as part of this campaign, but ground attacks would mark a significant escalation, with suggestions they could target cartels in Mexico.

“We’re going to start getting on the ground now regarding the cartels. The cartels run Mexico,” Trump told broadcaster Sean Hannity of Fox News.

Trump has previously floated the option of striking targets inside Mexico, saying on Sunday he was pressuring the country’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, to allow him to send U.S. troops to fight drug cartels, an offer he said he had previously rejected.

Sheinbaum said Monday that the Americas “do not belong” to any power after Trump asserted Washington’s “dominance” over the hemisphere after taking on Maduro.

Sibylla Brodzinsky, Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report