September 24, 2005
Minister of Foreign Affairs expects dialogue with the U.S.

(El Nacional) - " According to the Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Alí Rodríguez Araque in an interview with AFP, Venezuela is expecting that Tom Shannon, who is responsible for Latin American Affairs within the US State Department, will 'create an environment to start a dialogue' when he says he wants a good relation with the South American country (...)

Rodríguez insisted that Venezuela has 'great disposition to make its best effort in order to improve relations with the American government' and that it only demanded respect to its sovereignty (...)

The Venezuelan Minister explained, this means: 'An end to the intervention in internal affairs'.

He criticised that Washington is always referring to Venezuela as a 'destabilising factor' and that 'they have travelled around the world trying to win other countries to isolate Venezuela and sanction it'.

'No country can have good relations with another, if it carries out these type of policies', he said.

'The United States has no reason to worry about Venezuela. But Venezuela, on the other hand, has many reasons to worry about the positions taken by the Bush Administration'. Rodríguez said",