Modi, Venezuela's Rodríguez Push For Deeper Energy Ties Amid Caracas's US-Backed Oil Revival |
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New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday held talks with Venezuelan acting president Delcy Rodríguez, focusing on energy cooperation at a time when India has sharply increased imports of Venezuelan crude under a new US-backed arrangement that emerged after the removal of Nicolás Maduro earlier this year.
Rodríguez, who is on a working visit to India from June 3 to 6, was accompanied by a large ministerial delegation that included Venezuela’s foreign, finance, science and transportation ministers. Besides meeting Modi, she also held talks with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and was scheduled to meet Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
The visit was first disclosed not by New Delhi or Caracas but by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on May 21, who revealed Rodríguez’s planned trip while pitching American energy exports to India, presenting Venezuelan crude and US energy supplies as part of the same conversation on India’s future energy needs
Rodriguez assumed the acting presidency after former president Nicolas Maduro was removed in a US military operation on January 3. Since then, the Trump administration has issued temporary sanctions relief authorising US companies to do business in Venezuela’s oil, mining and financial sectors.........