BARCELONA, April 17 (Reuters) – Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was offered a meeting with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his government during her visit to Spain but she declined because she did not consider it “opportune”, Sanchez said on Friday.
Machado’s lack of contact with any members of Spain’s leftist coalition government contrasts with her planned encounters with the country’s right-wing opposition to Sanchez.
The prime minister said he was nonetheless happy to meet with the 2025 Nobel Peace laureate whenever she wanted.
“Our doors are open to all (Venezuelan) opposition leaders,” Sanchez said, underlining that many of them were living in exile in Spain.
Sanchez, speaking at a press conference alongside Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva after a bilateral meeting, said Venezuela’s future needed to be democratically decided by its citizens without any foreign interference.
Machado has held talks with world leaders including U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron since leaving Venezuela, where she had been in hiding.
She has been lobbying for the Venezuelan opposition to be given a role in determining the country’s future after the U.S. ousted longtime leader Nicolas Maduro in January.
Earlier on Friday, Machado met with the leader of the conservative People’s Party, Alberto Nunez Feijoo. Later in the day, she is set to hold a joint news conference with Santiago Abascal, head of far-right party Vox.
On Saturday, Machado will be welcomed by the regional leader of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, one of Sanchez’s fiercest critics.
Ayuso will bestow the region’s gold medal on Machado, while Madrid’s Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida – also of the PP – will hand her the keys to the city ahead of a rally with Venezuelan supporters.
(Reporting by Joan Faus; Writing by David Latona; Editing by Aislinn Laing, Charlie Devereux and Nia Williams)
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