(Reuters) – Venezuela and the United States have agreed to resume flights of migrants deported from the U.S., senior officials from each country said on Thursday, after an apparent pause in the repatriation flights which kicked off last month.
U.S.
diplomat Richard Grenell, a special envoy for President Donald Trump, said in a post on X on Thursday morning the flights would resume on Friday.
The deal will safeguard the rights of migrants, Venezuelan lawmaker Jorge Rodriguez, who leads the government negotiating team which has met with the U.S.
on migration, sanctions and other issues, said in a statement later in the day.
In late January, Grenell visited Venezuelan capital Caracas to meet with President Nicolas Maduro and discuss the deportation of migrants, among other issues.
Shortly afterwards, a group of Americans held in Venezuela were released and the repatriation flights began.
Venezuelans make up a large portion of migrants who have sought entry into the United States in recent years, with many fleeing their home country due to an extended economic and political crisis.
Last weekend, Maduro indicated that scheduled flights to transport deportees had been “affected” by the Trump administration’s decision to cancel a key oil license which had allowed U.S.-based oil major Chevron to operate in the country.
The U.S.
government cited a lack of progress on electoral reforms in addition to the stalled migrant returns to justify the license cancellation, which the Maduro government had relied on to generate much-needed revenue.
Maduro and his government have always rejected sanctions by the United States and others, saying they are illegitimate measures that amount to an “economic war”.
Venezuela’s electoral authority and top court declared Maduro the winner of a disputed presidential election last year, though authorities never released ballot box-level vote tallies.
The opposition did publish vote tallies showing its candidate won in a landslide, prompting many governments including in Washington to dismiss the official result as flawed.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by David Alire Garcia, Philippa Fletcher and Deepa Babington)
