WASHINGTON/BOGOTA (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy Richard Grenell will meet with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Friday in Venezuela, the U.S. and Venezuela both said.
The two countries have a fraught recent history marked by broken diplomatic relations, sanctions and accusations of criminal activity and coup-plotting.
But they share interest in several pending bilateral issues, including a license allowing U.S. oil major Chevron to operate in the South American country, the imprisonment of American detainees in Venezuela and a sweeping Trump immigration crackdown set to spike deportation numbers.
Trump said last week his administration would likely stop buying oil from Venezuela and was looking "very strongly" at the South American country.
Trump has said he will remove members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua from the United States and media have reported the U.S. is working on a deal with El Salvador to accept them.
Venezuelan attorney general Tarek Saab said last week his country definitively destroyed the gang there in 2023, but that his office is willing to restart legal cooperation with the U.S. in order to extradite Venezuelan members of the gang.
The Grenell-Maduro meeting is "not a negotiation in exchange for anything," Mauricio Claver-Carone, United States Special Envoy for Latin America, said on a call ahead of Secretary of State Rubio's travel to Central America and the Caribbean.
"The United States and President Trump expects Nicolas Maduro to take back all of the Venezuelan criminals and gang members that have been exported to United States, and to do so unequivocally and without condition, first and foremost, as we would expect any other country in the world. And that is non-negotiable in that sense."
It is unclear exactly how many Americans or dual citizens are being held by Venezuela, but Venezuelan officials have spoken publicly about at least nine.
Maduro's officials have accused most of them of terrorism and said some were high-level "mercenaries".
Venezuela has regularly accused members of the opposition and foreign detainees of conspiring with U.S. entities such as the Central Intelligence Agency to plan terrorist attacks. U.S. officials have consistently denied this.
"American hostages that are being held in Venezuela, not only are unacceptable, but that they must be released immediately," Claver-Carone added.
In late 2023, Venezuela's government released dozens of prisoners including 10 Americans after months of negotiations, while the U.S. released a close ally of Maduro.
Venezuela's communications ministry confirmed in a post on Telegram on Friday that the meeting would take place.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu and Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by David Ljunggren and Alistair Bell)
