By R.Ravichandran
KUALA LUMPUR, July 18 (NNN-Bernama) — Venezuela’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs for Asia, the Middle East and Oceania, Capaya Rodriguez González, said her country is very keen on joining the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) to forge a more productive relationship with the regional grouping.
She said Caracas applied and made formal request to join the TAC in 2020, adding that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela wants to strengthen political, cultural and economic ties with the region.
“We hope to broaden our collaboration with the ASEAN region…Asean is a very dynamic and vibrant region and we see TAC as important to maintain regional peace and stability,” she told Bernama in a recent interview during her visit to Malaysia as part of her tour to several Southeast Asian countries to further strengthen Caracas’ ties with the region.
Rodriguez said that Venezuela is giving priority to joining the TAC, as it sees this as a fundamental step in the process of rapprochement by her Government towards this important regional integration mechanism.
She pointed out that Venezuela had been organising ASEAN Day celebrations annually since 2018 to deepen its relations, cooperation and friendship with ASEAN and create more awareness about ASEAN in Venezuela. The first ASEAN Day in Venezuela was celebrated on Oct 31, 2018.
Rodriguez said Venezuela was also impressed with ASEAN member countries’ vaccination campaigns against the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the ASEAN Secretariat’s website, the TAC was established in 1976 and embodies universal principles of peaceful coexistence and friendly cooperation among States in Southeast Asia. It is a legally-binding code for inter-state relations in the region and beyond.
The Treaty has been amended three times – in 1987, 1998, and 2020 – to allow for accession by states outside Southeast Asia as well as for regional organisations whose members are sovereign states, among others. As of January 2021, there are 43 High Contracting Parties to the TAC.
The first two non-ASEAN member countries which acceded to the Treaty were China and India in 2003.
Closer to Venezuela, Colombia and Cuba acceded to TAC in 2020. Brazil was the first Latin American country to accede to the TAC.
ASEAN, established in 1967, comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
On Caracas-Washington relationship, Rodriguez stressed that Venezuela is willing to discuss or negotiate any issues with the United States, but not at the expense of its sovereignty and political independence.
She said Venezuela continues to suffer due to US unilateral coercive measures against the South American country, including on its national oil company and its financial system.
“We wonder why US makes enemy with a small country like us with 30 million people. Venezuela is a country which believes in diplomacy of peace,” she pointed out.
Rodiguez said the policy of President Nicolas Maduro’s government is oriented toward the people such as providing food, housing and education, and that the majority of people were supporting Maduro.
”They (the US) try to talk…but they contradict themselves because they still recognised Guaido, but at the same time sent delegation to meet our president,” she said.
The political crisis in Venezuela came following Juan Guaido’s declaration of himself as acting president in January 2019 – a move which was supported by the United States (US) and numerous other countries.
Guaido is still recognised by Washington as Venezuela’s rightful leader. But in March this year, a delegation from the United States met with Maduro in Caracas.
— NNN-BERNAMA
