The office of OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro released a statement with comments from the European Council Venice Commission on the legality of the Venezuelan presidency decree which was used to convene elections for a constituent assembly to modify the country´s main law.
The Organization of American States (OAS) and the Government of Peru signed the agreement on preparations for the Eighth Summit of the Americas, which will bring together all heads of state and government of the Hemisphere in April 2018, in Lima.
Following through on its threat, Venezuela's government announced on Wednesday it is quitting the Organization of American States, accusing the regional body of meddling in its internal affairs over weeks of political unrest. The step was taken just hours after violent clashes in Caracas between security forces and protesters during yet another march against the socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro.
Venezuela's chief prosecutor broke with the government on Friday and rebuked a Supreme Court decision stripping Congress of its last vestiges of power, showing a crack in the unity of the embattled populist government of President Nicolas Maduro as it came under a torrent of international condemnation over what many decried as a major step toward dictatorship.
The Organization of American States Secretary-General Luis Almagro said Wednesday that the Cuban government denied him permission to enter the island to receive a human rights prize created to honor late dissident Oswaldo Paya. Mexican ex-President Felipe Calderon and former Chilean Education Minister Maria Aylwin were denied entry to the island the day before.
Uruguay became the first member state of the Organization of American States (OAS) to deposit the instrument of ratification of the Inter-American Convention on the Protection of the Human Rights of Elderly Persons. The Permanent Representative of Uruguay, Hugo Cayrús, recalled that the legislature of his country ratified the Convention in September.
Despite objections from Brazil and Paraguay, Uruguay next Saturday 30 July will transfer to Venezuela the rotating chair of Mercosur for the second half of the year, as indicated in the “group's rules and regulations”.
Veteran U.S. diplomat Tom Shannon spoke for nearly two hours with Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday to re-start relations between the ideologically opposed governments amid a punishing economic crisis in the oil rich country.
Addressing the OAS Permanent Council, former Spanish president Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said that reconciliation is an indispensable and essential challenge to overcome the current confrontation situation in Venezuela, and although it will be a long, difficult process, he recommends dialogue efforts should continue.
Argentine foreign minister Susana Malcorra will be absent from the debate on the Venezuelan situation scheduled for next Thursday in Washington, since that same day she will be attending the UN Special Decolonization Committee when the Falklands/Malvinas issue is to be addressed.