By Humeyra Pamuk and Steve Holland
WASHINGTON, Sept 18 (Reuters) – US President Donald Trump will have a meeting with Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez in New York on Tuesday, a senior US official said on Friday, in what will be the first in-person meeting between the two leaders since Washington ousted former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January.
Trump’s meeting with Rodriguez, Maduro’s former deputy, will be on the sidelines of a reception that the Republican president will be hosting, US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz told reporters in a briefing call.
“The president will host a UN General Assembly leaders’ reception. There, he’ll participate in a pull-aside with the acting president Rodriguez of Venezuela,” Waltz said. He did not give any details of what they might discuss.
The Venezuelan communications ministry, which handles all press queries for the government, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last month, the US and Venezuela signed an energy agreement that would allow the US to take partial control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, betting that American companies can help revive the South American nation’s battered energy industry.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is facing a growing dilemma over when to return home to rally support amid reticence from the Trump administration about her homecoming.
Machado left the country late last year to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, after largely living in hiding since a contested 2024 election. She sought to cultivate Trump as an ally well before Maduro’s removal. But since the ouster, Trump has repeatedly expressed support for Rodriguez.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Steve Holland in Washington; Additional reporting by Julia Symmes-Cobb in Bogota; Editing by Sergio Non and Rosalba O’Brien)
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