Costa Rica announced last Wednesday the resumption of consular relations with Venezuela. This will allow citizens of both countries to have access to these services in both nations. This was reported by Arnoldo André Tinoco, Chancellor of the Republic, at a press conference after the Governing Council.
The diplomat reported that the process began at the Celac Summit, which took place last week in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where the Vice President of the Republic, Stephan Brunner, and the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Christian Guillermet, participated. In the records of the General Directorate of Migration and Aliens, there are 25,000 Venezuelans in Costa Rica and 94,000 refugee applications.
This decision to resume consular relations arises after the end of the government of Juan Guaidó, who was recognized by Costa Rica and which, in addition, motivated the permanence of María Faría as his representative in our country. “The only (government) that remains is that of Caracas, with which we are going to regulate consular relations so that they have someone to organize their consular aspects, and so that Costa Ricans in Caracas have consular attention, possibly with a third country”, reported the chancellor.
In this way, another nation will be sought with which Costa Rica already has diplomatic relations and which currently has an infrastructure in Venezuela to allow care.
Position of Costa Rica does not change with regard to Maduro
The President of the Republic, Rodrigo Chaves, said that this decision does not modify Costa Rica’s diplomatic position of not recognizing Nicolás Maduro as president of Venezuela. “Do not misunderstand our diplomatic position; what we want is to manage issues of Human Rights, well-being of people and services, apart from reestablishing consular relations”, he declared. This was announced few days ago, despite the fact that last October -2022- the president stated that he would value the reestablishment of relations with this South American nation.
Since January 2019, Costa Rica has not recognized Maduro as the Venezuelan president, citing a lack of transparency during the last electoral process, described as a farce and manipulated by the government itself.
