Mean­ing­ful di­a­logue be­tween all par­ties in the mat­ters con­cern­ing Venezuela.

The need for this was un­der­scored by T&T when Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley held fi­nal meet­ings on Venezuela at the Unit­ed Na­tions (UN) - in­clud­ing with the Unit­ed States’ rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the UN.

This was con­firmed via a state­ment from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter last night.

Row­ley held a meet­ing with Am­bas­sador Jonathan Co­hen, the US’ rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the UN, at the end of a round of New York meet­ings which Cari­com’s del­e­ga­tion held with UN of­fi­cials on the Venezue­lan cri­sis.

The del­e­ga­tion, head­ed by Cari­com chair­man (St Kitts Prime Min­is­ter) Tim­o­thy Har­ris, left Mon­day on a mis­sion to seek a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to the tur­moil that has plagued Venezuela in re­cent weeks.

The cri­sis has been height­ened by the Venezue­lan Na­tion­al As­sem­bly head Juan Guai­do’s self-de­c­la­ra­tion as Pres­i­dent. He’s set about mak­ing var­i­ous ap­point­ments and is be­ing backed by a num­ber of oth­er coun­tries in­clud­ing the US, Cana­da, Is­rael, Aus­tralia sev­er­al Latin ter­ri­to­ries in the Li­ma Group and oth­ers. In­creas­ing pres­sure on the em­bat­tled Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion, the US this week slapped sanc­tions on Venezue­lan’s PDVSA oil com­pa­ny and yes­ter­day height­ed its trav­el ad­vi­so­ry to the high­est, warn­ing cit­i­zens against Venezuela. Guai­do has sup­port­ed the US’ sanc­tions.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Cari­com lob­by the del­e­ga­tion, which in­clud­ed Cari­com sec­re­tary gen­er­al Ir­win LaRocque and T&T’s am­bas­sador to the UN Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, met with the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed Na­tions, María Fer­nan­da Es­pinosa Gar­cés, at the UN’s Head­quar­ters in New York.

Af­ter that meet­ing, the del­e­ga­tion met with Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to the UN from South Africa, Uraguay, Brazil, Aus­tralia and Nicaragua.

The OPM al­so stat­ed: “At the end of this round of Cari­com meet­ings, T&T held a bi­lat­er­al meet­ing with Am­bas­sador Jonathan Co­hen, US Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the UN.”

“Dur­ing the dis­cus­sion, T&T as part of the Cari­com del­e­ga­tion out­lined its con­cerns about the volatil­i­ty of the Venezue­lan sit­u­a­tion and the ex­is­ten­tial threat that it pos­es to the sta­bil­i­ty of the re­gion. T&T al­so em­pha­sised the need for mean­ing­ful di­a­logue be­tween all par­ties in these mat­ters and reaf­firmed a com­mit­ment to work­ing through Cari­com and with all ex­ter­nal part­ners with­in and out­side of the re­gion.”

The OPM stat­ed, Row­ley al­so in­di­cat­ed that T&T is com­mit­ted “to the com­mon ob­jec­tive of im­prov­ing the con­di­tions of the Venezue­lan peo­ple whilst en­sur­ing the preser­va­tion of the re­gion as a Zone of Peace.”

Row­ley is ex­pect­ed home to­day.

Eu­ro­pean coun­tries have giv­en Maduro eight days to call fresh elec­tions — but he’s re­ject­ed this call.

Seek­ing his own terms, Maduro said Mon­day that he’s open to meet­ing his Venezue­lan op­po­nents in T&T or “wher­ev­er “ for di­a­logue or ne­go­ti­a­tions on the sit­u­a­tion.

How­eve,r in an in­ter­view with CNN En Es­panol, Guai­do said he’s hop­ing to win the sup­port of Venezuela’s armed forces to con­vince Maduro to step down and was” ready to do what’s nec­es­sary to see democ­ra­cy.” But Guai­do warned he wouldn’t start a “false di­a­logue” with a regime that jails and tor­tures po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents.

He, how­ev­er, said Maduro and mem­bers of Venezuela’s mil­i­tary “could be grant­ed amnesty as part of a tran­si­tion to­ward democ­ra­cy.”