Washington, Feb 14 (EFE).- The United States will not decide whether or not to reimpose oil and gas sanctions on Venezuela until April, when the licenses expire, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at a press conference on Wednesday.
In October, the White House largely eased sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector in response to an agreement between the government and opposition parties to hold internationally monitored presidential elections in the second half of 2024.
Caracas soon released some political prisoners but reinstated a penalty on the opposition candidate who won the primaries, Maria Corina Machado, banning her from running for office and on Friday detained a prominent activist and five of her family members, accusing them of plotting against Maduro.
“We will see at that point (April 2024) where we are with respect to the Maduro regime following through on its commitments and then we’ll make our determinations about how we proceed from there,” Sullivan said, adding that this kind of “verification” is “embedded in the structure of the deal.”
The Biden administration already reimposed sanctions on Venezuela’s gold sector at the end of January and has warned that it will allow Venezuela’s oil and gas licenses to expire on April 18 if the situation does not improve.
Among the detained activists is Rocío San Miguel, a former civil servant and head of a watchdog that monitors the armed forces, who was arrested by Venezuelan security forces on February 9 as she tried to board a flight from Caracas to Miami with her daughter.
The US imposed sanctions on Venezuela in 2019 to punish Maduro’s government after his re-election in 2018, which the it rejected as a fraud, and lifted them in 2023 with the aim of increasing global oil flows to ease high prices caused by sanctions on Russia and OPEC+ decisions to cut production.EFE
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