Despite a travel ban, self-appointed interim president and opposition leader Juan Guaido traveled from his home country Venezuela to neighboring Colombia. Colombian head of state Ivan Duque received him yesterday with military honors at the Casa de Narino presidential palace in Bogota. A meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was scheduled today.
„We will strengthen the world’s support to achieve freedom for Venezuela,“ Guaido wrote on Twitter after the working meeting with Duque and Colombia’s Vice President Marta Lucia Ramirez and Foreign Minister Claudia Blum.
USA as an important supporter
Today Guaido wanted to meet with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on the sidelines of a regional ministerial meeting on terrorism in Bogota. „I am happy to have a meeting with him,“ said Pompeo, according to journalists traveling with him, before he left Berlin.
The United States is one of the main supporters of Guaido, who has been trying to push socialist leader Nicolas Maduro out of office for a year. However, the recent impression was that US President Donald Trump has lost interest in Venezuela due to lack of progress.
Prime Minister Guaido declared himself interim president a year ago and thus openly challenged the socialist leader Maduro.
