Spain's PM meets Venezuela's exiled opposition leader
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday met with Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who fled to Madrid last weekend requesting asylum. It was billed as a "private meeting" between Gonzalez Urrutia and Sanchez, who returned early on Thursday from an official visit to China. Spanish media reports said the Venezuelan opposition figure would meet with Sanchez and Spanish Foreign Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares. Gonzalez Urrutia, 75, has not spoken publicly since he arrived in Madrid on Sunday to seek political asylum, having fled the Latin American country after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government ordered his arrest. He had been in hiding following a July 28 presidential election that the opposition insists he won but was claimed by incumbent Maduro. After his arrival in Spain, Gonzalez Urrutia said he had decided to leave "so that things can change and so we can build a new stage for Venezuela." "I have taken this decision thinking of Venezuela and that our destiny as a country cannot, must not, be that of a conflict of pain and suffering." he added in a letter posted on social network X on Wednesday. On Wednesday, Sanchez said that granting Gonzalez Urrutia asylum was a "gesture of humanity". While the United States has recognised Gonzalez Urrutia as the winner of the election, Spain and other European Union nations have so far limited themselves to refusing to accept Maduro as the victor and calling on the Venezuelan government to release the voting tally sheets. Spanish lawmakers on Wednesday approved a nonbinding motion calling on Sanchez's government to recognise Gonzalez Urrutia "as the legitimate winner of the presidential elections", angering Caracas which threatened to cut ties with Madrid in response. (AFP)