President Maduro Travels to Turkey to Meet With Erdogan

On Tuesday, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro traveled to Turkey to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and exchange views on current global issues.

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"Good morning, Venezuelan people and peoples of the world... I invite you to be attentive to the agenda of international activities that we will have in the next few hours. It will be of geopolitical interest and importance," he tweeted before leaving Venezuela.

During his two-day official visit, the Bolivarian leader will review all aspects of bilateral relations and evaluate the steps to be taken to deepen cooperation between the two nations. In 2018, Maduro visited Turkey in July and Erdogan traveled to Venezuela in December.

Both countries maintain good diplomatic and trade relations. In this sense, for example, Erdogan has forcefully defended the legitimacy of the Bolivarian constitutional government against the claims of the US-backed opponent Juan Guaido.

The tweet reads, "Sanctions are a crime, but this issue is not addressed by the United States at the Summit of the Americas. It is not in their interest for Venezuela to raise its voice and demand the freedom of our Diplomat Alex Saab. The Summit Blocks."

On Wednesday, Russia's Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov will also pay an official visit to Ankara. So far, however, the Turkish presidency has not indicated whether such a visit will provide an opportunity for a Russian-Venezuelan meeting.

In March, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez met with Lavrov in southwestern Turkey. On that occasion, they worked on the development of strategic association mechanisms and "condemned the illegal unilateral coercive measures used as an instrument of interference in matters of state sovereignty," according to the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry.