WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — In late April, Maduro declared he was pulling the nation out of the OAS after the regional bloc’s governing body voted in favor of calling an urgent meeting of foreign ministers to discuss deadly protests in Venezuela.
Venezuela handed a letter on its withdrawal to the OAS secretary general on April 29. The process of withdrawal takes two years, but Maduro said it would speed it up.
"We hope that we will be able to overcome some of those differences and approve action at the consultation of foreign ministers today to express some concerns about the situation in Venezuela, which is deteriorating and also encourage the formation of a contact group to help promote a peaceful negotiated solution there," Sullivan stated on Monday.
OAS member states said they are deeply concerned by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s efforts to adopt a new constitution by July 31, US State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Michael Fitzpatrick said during the conference call.
Fitzpatrick noted that Maduro plans to remove Venezuela’s current freely elected national assembly and other remaining democratic institutions to replace them with "puppet institutions."
On May 31, the OAS halted indefinitely Venezuela crisis talks after failing to find an agreement during a meeting in Washington, DC. Guatemala’s Foreign Minister Carlos Raul Morales, who chaired the meeting, said no consensus had been reached on how to address the turmoil in Venezuela, which has taken more than 60 lives since early April.
