While the Venezuelan Socialist Party declared allied legislator Luis Parra as head of parliament, allowing Nicolas Maduro to control the institution, Morocco reiterated support for Juan Guaido who declared he was acting President of Venezuela in 2019. While Venezuela is witnessing a new chapter of a crisis that started a year ago, Morocco reiterated support for Juan Guaido, a Venezuelan politician who was declared in January 2019 acting president of the Latin American country. «Morocco supports real hopes of the Venezuelan people and backs Mr. Juan Guaido following his re-election to a second term as head of the National Assembly», Foreign Affairs Minister Nasser Bourira said, Wednesday, in Rabat. «Morocco's position regarding the Venezuelan crisis has been clear since the beginning», he said, adding the «re-election» of Guaido as head of the Venezuelan National Assembly goes hand in hand with the Venezuelan laws and the needed quorum. «Morocco is also working with the international community and with the Lima group countries to help create an institutional framework that meets the true needs of the Venezuelan people», Bourita explained. The minister added that the Kingdom «rejects and denounces the attempts aimed at preventing this election». Morocco supports «a peaceful resolution to the Venezuelan crisis, with the need of respecting the aspirations of the Venezuelan people», he concluded. Rabat has been supporting Guaido since January 2019 In Venezuela, a new crisis has made headlines after troops blocked Guaido from entering the Parliament on January 5. Things escalated after the country's Socialist Party declared Venezuelan politician Luis Parra as head of the institution. Reacting to the new situation in Caracas, the United States Treasury imposed new sanctions on Luis Parra and his vice president, stressing that they «attempted to block the democratic process in Venezuela». Meanwhile, Washington reiterated support for Guaido, who spent the last year denouncing the re-election of Parra, referring to him as the political heir of former Venezuelan politician Hugo Chavez. Morocco's position has been in line with the one adopted by the United States since the eruption of the Venezuelan crisis. In January 2019, Nasser Bourita held a telephone conversation with Guaido, before the Kingdom's ambassador to Peru Youssef Bella was received by Guaido's representative Carlos Scull in Lima. In March, the Speaker of the Venezuelan Parliament appointed Jose Ignacio Guedez as his ambassador to Morocco. The Kingdom was also present in August 2019 at the International Conference for Democracy in Venezuela, organized by the Lima Group, bringing together 14 countries from the American continent, in the Peruvian capital. During the UN General Assembly, in September, Rabat reaffirmed its support for Venezuela. On the sidelines of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly, Bourita met with Julio Borges, who is in charge of Foreign Affairs for Juan Guaido. Morocco has, moreover, received from the latter a promise to review Caracas' position on the Western Sahara issue. Caracas recognized «SADR» in August 1982.
