WASHINGTON, April 25. /TASS/. Former Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido has arrived in Miami, Florida, after being expelled by Colombian authorities, the EVTV channel reported.
"I was on the road for 70 hours," Guaido told the TV channel. "Unfortunately, today I have to say that the persecution [by Venezuelan authorities] is also felt in a certain way in Colombia," he added.
On Monday, Guaido announced that he had left Venezuela and was in Colombia. According to the politician, he arrived in the neighboring country for a conference in Bogota on the Venezuelan political crisis and planned to request meetings with participating international delegations.
Following this, the Colombian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that Bogota had not invited the politician to the meeting and did not expect him to participate in the event. In the end, the Colombian authorities mandated that Guaido leave the country and also prohibited him from making public statements.
The Colombian government called an international conference to seek avenues for settling the political crisis in Venezuela. It is expected that the forum will kick off on Tuesday and will be attended by representatives of international organizations and 15 countries, while the attendance of any delegations from the Venezuelan government or opposition is not envisioned.
The political crisis in Venezuela worsened in 2019 when the oppositional National Assembly did not recognize the results of the 2018 presidential election won by incumbent President Nicolas Maduro. As a result, the parliament announced that in the absence of a legitimate head of state, following the end of Maduro’s presidential term on January 23, 2019, his duties would be taken over by the speaker of the legislative body, who at that time was Guaido. He was recognized by the US, the majority of EU countries as well as some Latin American states. Last December, however, the Venezuelan opposition dissolved Guaido’s "provisional government."