Sawt Falasteen - New head of US mission in Venezuela arrives as ties warm

"I just arrived in Venezuela. My team and I are ready to work," Laura Dogu said in a post in Spanish on the US Embassy of Venezuela's X account, accompanied by photos of her disembarking a plane.

Dogu, a former ambassador to Nicaragua and Honduras, was named last week as US charge d'affaires in Venezuela. A charge d'affaires is the head of a diplomatic mission in the absence of a full ambassador.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil received Dogu after her arrival.

Their meeting was part of an effort by Caracas to "define a roadmap on questions of bilateral interest" and address existing differences via diplomacy, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The United States has already sent a mission to assess the embassy in Caracas, which has been largely unoccupied for the past six years.

It was shuttered in 2019 shortly after Washington and other major powers declared Maduro to be illegitimate following a flawed election. Maduro then severed diplomatic relations with Washington.

US forces attacked Venezuela on January 3, capturing Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores and taking them to New York for trial on US-issued drug trafficking charges.

President Donald Trump says he is now running Venezuela and has allowed Maduro's vice president Delcy Rodriguez to be interim leader so long as she toes Washington's line -- in particular granting US access to Venezuela's vast oil reserves.

Since 2019, the US embassy has been largely deserted other than a few local employees.

Since last year, a charge d'affaires for Venezuela, John McNamara, has been based in neighboring Colombia.

McNamara travelled with other US diplomats to Caracas days after Maduro's ouster to assess "a potential phased resumption of operations" at the embassy.

Trump has said he was working "really well" with Rodriguez, and a US official has said Rodriguez would visit the United States soon.

Reforms in her first month at the helm of the country have included a proposal for mass amnesty, plans to close the country's notorious El Helicoide prison in Caracas, and passing a new law opening up the country's oil sector to private investments.

US authorities on Friday announced that all Americans known to be held prisoner in Venezuela had been released.

For years, Venezuela has routinely arrested foreigners and domestic opposition actors on a range of charges from spying to plotting attacks -- charges critics dismiss as fabricated.

The Foro Penal rights group counts more than 700 political prisoners in Venezuela. Many of them are held at El Helicoide, which has been denounced as a torture center by the opposition and activists.

Rodriguez has ordered it converted into a "social, sports, cultural and commercial center."

R.Shaban--SF-PST