The moved follows a secret weekend visit to Venezuela by senior Biden administration officials, including the top White House official on Latin America and the State Department’s top hostage …
By Regina Garcia Cano, Joshua Goodman and Eric Tucker | Associated Press
A nongovernmental group that tracks arbitrary detentions and another person familiar with the matter confirmed to The Associated Press the release of Gustavo Cardenas, one of six oil executives jailed for more than four years. The release came hours after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro signaled an interest in improving relations with the U.S. amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and concerns in the United States over rising gas prices.
Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, came home empty-handed from a previous trip to Caracas in December. But he returned to Venezuela this weekend with other administration officials including Juan Gonzalez, the National Security Council director for the Western Hemisphere, and Ambassador James Story, who heads the U.S. government’s Venezuelan Affairs Unit out of neighboring Colombia.