Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

T&T is ac­tive­ly seek­ing to ap­point an am­bas­sador to Venezuela, de­spite Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­ing de­clared “per­sona non gra­ta” by the Venezue­lan Na­tion­al As­sem­bly.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers con­firmed that, de­spite ris­ing ten­sions with the Nicolás Maduro regime, there are no con­cerns re­gard­ing the safe­ty of T&T’s em­bassy or its per­son­nel in Cara­cas.

On the process of ap­point­ing an am­bas­sador, Sobers said, “As far as my last in­struc­tion from the Prime Min­is­ter, we are con­sid­er­ing fill­ing all am­bas­sado­r­i­al po­si­tions. But we are tak­ing our time with this, vet­ting can­di­dates thor­ough­ly. Once that process is com­plet­ed, we will send per­sons to posts, not on­ly in Venezuela but across oth­er mis­sions as well.”

Asked specif­i­cal­ly about the time­line for the Venezuela ap­point­ment, Sobers added, “I can’t com­ment on that be­cause, as you may imag­ine, we have added ad­di­tion­al tiers of se­cu­ri­ty vet­ting. When a can­di­date is se­lect­ed, the host coun­try must al­so con­duct its own vet­ting and pro­vide agree­ment be­fore the ap­point­ment pro­ceeds.”

De­spite the strained re­la­tions be­tween the two gov­ern­ments, Sobers re­as­sured that there are no se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns for T&T’s em­bassy in Cara­cas.

“To an­swer your ques­tion about whether there is any fear about send­ing some­one, the an­swer is ab­solute­ly no. We take the res­o­lu­tion from the Venezue­lan Na­tion­al As­sem­bly with con­cern, but we have no rea­son to be­lieve the em­bassy is un­der threat or that an am­bas­sador would be un­safe,” he said.

Sobers al­so not­ed that the em­bassy’s Head of Chancery in Cara­cas, Dayne-Marc Chin Slick, con­tin­ues to main­tain a re­spect­ful and co­op­er­a­tive re­la­tion­ship with the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties.

“They treat him with re­spect, he treats them with re­spect, and he is very com­pe­tent,” Sobers said.

Sim­i­lar­ly, Sobers said the Venezue­lan Em­bassy in T&T, head­ed by Am­bas­sador Al­varo Sanchez Cordero, will be treat­ed with re­spect. He added that he took no is­sue with Am­bas­sador Cordero pay­ing a cour­tesy vis­it to the Op­po­si­tion Leader on the same day the Venezue­lan Na­tion­al As­sem­bly de­clared Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar per­sona non gra­ta.

“There is a clear dis­tinc­tion be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and the Op­po­si­tion Leader, and we are un­both­ered by their ac­tions or rhetoric,” Sobers said.

T&T’s last am­bas­sador to Venezuela was re­tired Ma­jor Gen­er­al Ed­mund Dil­lon, who served from 2021 to 2025.