Venezuela’s government accepts proposal for Vatican mediation
[Venezuela’s government accepts proposal for
Vatican mediation in crisis AP]
"Opposition leader Ernesto Samper will ask Pope Francis to send a representative
to the country
President Nicolas Maduro has accepted a proposal by
the opposition to ask the Vatican to facilitate dialogue with Venezuela’s
socialist government.
The Union of South American Nations’ Secretary General
Ernesto Samper met late on Thursday with Maduro and afterward announced that he
would ask Pope Francis to send a representative to Venezuela. Samper was in
Caracas along with former Spanish President Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero in an
effort to revive a two-month-old attempt to bring the sides together to resolve
the country’s economic and political crisis.
The opposition has pushed for Pope Francis’s
intervention but also conditions its support for dialogue on the release of
people it considers political prisoners and a commitment by Maduro to hold a
recall referendum this year.
Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi,
said on Friday that “in the past, the Holy See has manifested its willingness,
in case the basis is there for its contribution to the dialogue.”
He added: “However, at the moment, no formal
communication has reached the Nunciature or the Secretariat of State spelling
out the substance and details of such a request.”"
Venezuela’s government accepts proposal for Vatican mediation in crisis
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Venezuela’s government accepts proposal for Vatican mediation