Rubio presses Venezuela's new top diplomat to free political prisoners

Marco Rubio sat down with Venezuela's brand-new foreign minister, Oliver Blanco, in Washington on Nov 2 — and the message from the US side was blunt: keep opening the cell doors. The State Department readout said Rubio pushed for the continued release of the political prisoners still locked up in Venezuela.

It was Blanco's first trip to the US since interim president Delcy Rodriguez handed him the job last week. Rodriguez has run Venezuela under Washington's oversight since American forces removed Nicolas Maduro in January, ending a rule that stretched back to 2013.

Rubio walked Blanco through what the US calls the President's three-phase plan for the country: stabilisation, economic recovery and political reconciliation, capped by a democratic transition. The two diplomats posed for cameras before the talks but said nothing to the press. According to the readout, they also covered the Venezuelan-led reconciliation talks and institutional reforms meant to set up free, fair and credible elections.

The prisoner question is the sharp end of all that. Maduro was widely accused of jailing opponents and activists, often on manufactured coup-plotting charges. Washington has kept the pressure on since Rodriguez took over, and a landmark amnesty law has freed many detainees — yet hundreds remain behind bars. Foro Penal, the NGO that tracks political prisoners, counted 344 as of Sept 18.

Blanco's day didn't stop at Foggy Bottom. He also met Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, where the two discussed Venezuela's trajectory and the same stabilisation-recovery-transition framework, per a US readout. Venezuela's government and opposition figures have both said fresh elections are coming after a series of talks — though nobody has said when.

So the runway is set, the jargon is agreed, and the calendar is still blank. For the people still in Venezuelan custody, the next release is the only phase that counts.