Panama has always been an excellent mediating country, and President Mulino has even said that if resolving the situation in Venezuela requires hosting certain individuals from the Venezuelan regime, we would be willing to do so temporarily. He stated this on the sidelines of the Doha Forum, which concluded on Sunday in Qatar.
On Sunday, Panama's Vice Chancellor, Carlos Hoyos, told EFE in an interview that the Central American nation is positioning itself as a mediator between the United States and Venezuela at a time of high tension between the two countries and amid a possible U.S. action against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. For this purpose, he suggested, Panama could "host certain individuals from the Venezuelan regime."
Diosdado Cabello, the General Secretary of Venezuela's ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV), dismissed Panama's intention to mediate the tensions between the South American country and the United States. He stated that Panama, led by José Raúl Mulino, an ally of the Venezuelan opposition, should advocate for its own citizens.
"In Panama, they do whatever the United States says," Cabello, who also serves as Minister of Interior and Justice, said during the PSUV's weekly press conference, broadcast on the state television channel Venezolana de Televisión.
On Sunday, the spokesperson for Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Majed al-Ansari, affirmed that his country is "waiting" for the parties or other states to request Doha to act as a mediator between the United States and Venezuela.
The United States maintains a military deployment in the Caribbean, near the border with Venezuela, under the pretext of combating drug trafficking, which Caracas has denounced as a "threat" seeking to provoke a government change.
Furthermore, the South American country is suffering from an air connectivity crisis that originated after a notice issued on November 21 by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which urged to "exercise extreme caution" when flying over Venezuela and the southern Caribbean due to what it considers a "potentially dangerous situation" in the area.
"We are waiting for someone to ask us," al-Ansari said at a press conference on the sidelines of the Doha Forum, assuring that Qatari authorities are "communicating with all parties" but that, for the moment, Doha is "not doing anything officially in this regard."
The Qatari spokesperson recalled that in recent years, his country has held talks with Venezuela and the United States to reach a prisoner exchange agreement, while stating that Qatar remains "committed to that process if necessary."
