Venezuela's Maduro holds out olive branch to U.S., suggests serious talks

MADRID: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has extended an olive branch to U.S. President Donald Trump, proposing serious talks on combating drug trafficking and offering U.S. companies ready access to Venezuelan oil.

Maduro said Venezuela was a "brother country" to the United States and a friendly government. He noted that when he and Trump last spoke in November, the U.S. president had acknowledged his authority by addressing him as "Mr. President."

The longtime Venezuelan strongman spoke in an interview that was filmed on New Year's Eve and aired on Venezuelan state TV on the evening of New Year's Day.

In the broadcast, Maduro and his interviewer walk through a militarized zone of the capital Caracas. Later, Maduro takes the wheel of a car with the journalist in the passenger seat and the president's wife, Cilia Flores, in the back - a gesture commentators interpreted as an attempt to project confidence amid fears of a U.S. strike, despite Maduro's scaling back of public appearances in recent weeks.

The comments represent a shift in Maduro's tone towards the United States since the latter launched a large-scale military buildup in the southern Caribbean. Trump has accused the "illegitimate" Maduro of running a narco-state and threatened to remove him from power.

Maduro has vehemently denied links to crime and says that the U.S. is seeking to oust him to take control of Venezuela's vast oil reserves and rare earth mineral deposits.

At an event shortly before Christmas, Maduro urged Trump to focus on domestic challenges, saying: "Honestly, if I speak with him again, I will tell him that each one should attend to their internal affairs."

In the latest remarks, Maduro told his interviewer: "To the people of the United States I say what I have always said, Venezuela is a brother country... a friendly government.

"We must start to speak seriously, with the facts in hand. The U.S. government knows that, because we have said it a lot to their interlocutors, that if they want to speak seriously about the agreement to battle drug trafficking, we are ready to do that. If they want Venezuela's oil, Venezuela is ready to accept U.S. investments like those of Chevron, when, where and how they want to make them."