Peru insists on its position on Venezuela: “There is no change”

Peru’s new foreign minister, Elmer Schialer, said on Thursday, during his first act in office, that his country “will continue to support the Venezuelan people in “their fight for democracy and freedom.”

“With regard to Venezuela, I want to emphasize that there is no turning back. Peru will continue to maintain its firm and unwavering position of demanding respect for the will expressed by the Venezuelan people in the presidential elections of July 28,” said Schialer during the traditional ceremony of presentation as foreign minister.

Hours earlier, the President of the Council of Ministers, Gustavo Adrianzén, said on Thursday that Peru has not recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia as the elected president of the Caribbean country.

The statement discredits Schialer’s predecessor, former Foreign Minister Javier González-Olaechea, who said on July 30 that Peru recognized González Urrutia as the president-elect of Venezuela, after the elections in which the National Electoral Council (CNE) gave victory to the current president Nicolás Maduro.

Regarding Peru’s position, Adrianzén said that the Foreign Ministry has issued various official statements that “hope that the minutes will be delivered” and that “it is essential that these results be subject to a review.”

He avoided calling Venezuela a dictatorship and denied that diplomatic relations with the Caribbean country, broken after the elections, would be reestablished, but admitted that there is work to be done to restore them.

At his presentation, Schialer reiterated that the Venezuelan authorities “have not presented the electoral records” of the presidential elections, as their own law dictates, “which is evidence of serious irregularities in the process.”

Given this situation, he reiterated that Peru does not recognize the results of the elections.

He also confirmed the country’s condemnation of “the arbitrary detentions and political persecution suffered by” Venezuelans and, in particular, “those who oppose the Maduro regime.”

“We have resolutely rejected the arrest warrant issued against Mr. Edmundo González Urrutia. In other words, what is happening in Venezuela is of the utmost importance for Peru and the region and is also of the greatest concern,” he concluded.