Kerry on Venezuela: ‘We’d like to see a change’

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was interviewed Wednesday (Feb. 26) on MSNBC. Here’s the one portion of the interview that dealt with Venezuela’s bid for an exchange of ambassadors.

ANDREA MITCHELL (MSNBC): Venezuela ñ these protests have been spreading. It started as a student protest; now it’s a lot more. But Maduro is now suggesting that after four years they want to at least consider an exchange of ambassadors. Is there a diplomatic option for us here? Is he beginning to worry perhaps about his own grip on power?

SECRETARY KERRY: I don’t know the answer to whether he’s worried or not, Andrea, but I’ll tell you this: We’ve made several outreaches. I’ve had – I met with the foreign minister of Venezuela when I was down at the OAS meeting, I’ve called and had telephone conversation in which we had ñ both meetings – we’ve emphasized that we’re looking to improve the relationship, we’d like to see a change.

Regrettably, the president, President Maduro, keeps choosing to blame the United States for things we’re not doing or for things that they’re unhappy about in their own economy and their own society. We’re prepared to have a change in this relationship. This tension between our countries has gone on for too long, in our view, but we’re not going to sit around and be blamed for things we’ve never done and see our diplomats declared persona non grata and sent out of the country for things they didn’t do.

So we’re happy to have a discussion. We’d like to move forward in the relationship, and hopefully Venezuela will begin to deal with its own internal problems and position itself so that we can engage thoughtfully.