Two Americans, including a former executive of the oil company Citgo, were back in the United States Wednesday after being released from prison in Venezuela, days after a high-level US delegation met with President Nicolas Maduro.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed that Gustavo Cardenas and Jorge Alberto Fernandez had returned to this country.
"We express our deepest appreciation to our many partners around the world who joined us in calling for their release," Blinken said in a statement.
"While we welcome this important positive step we continue to press for the release of all wrongfully detained US nationals in Venezuela and around the world," Blinken said.
A weekend meeting between a high-level US delegation and Maduro was seen as a possible turning point in relations after Washington ended its Venezuelan embassy operations in 2019 following Maduro's claim of victory in a vote many countries deemed illegitimate.
As Washington looks for ways to replace Russian oil imports -- which have now been banned over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine -- White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed Tuesday that "energy security" was one of the issues raised during the weekend conversation with oil-rich but economically ravaged Venezuela.
Maduro called the meeting "respectful, cordial and diplomatic."
It is not yet clear whether Cardenas and Fernandez have been cleared of their charges or by what process they were released.
- 'Political pawns' -
Cardenas is one of the so-called "Citgo 6" -- five Venezuela-born American citizens and one with US permanent residency -- who have been held in Venezuela since 2017, accused of corruption.
Citgo is the US subsidiary of Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA.
The United States has repeatedly called for the former executives' release, with State Department spokesman Ned Price saying last October that they were being held as "political pawns."
Fernandez, a Cuban-American, was arrested in 2021 in Tachira state, bordering Colombia, after being accused of terrorism.
The NGO Coalition for Human Rights and Democracy tweeted that Fernandez "was unjustly detained... and accused of being a terrorist, simply for carrying a drone."
US President Joe Biden said Tuesday both men had been "wrongfully detained in Venezuela."
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido -- whom the United States and some 60 other countries recognized as interim president after the contested 2018 election -- said he met with the same US delegation over the weekend.
"We welcome the news of the release of the two US hostages who were kidnapped in Venezuelan territory," his office said in a statement, urging the United States to condition sanctions relief on "democratization."
Without "democratic, institutional and transparent guarantees," the statement said, "not only would corruption, inefficiency and the actual state of our oil industry make it unviable, but it would also be financing and strengthening a dictatorship accused of crimes against humanity."
Last month, Venezuela's Supreme Court confirmed the sentences for the "Citgo 6," including one for Cardenas of eight years and 10 months.
Former Citgo president Jose Pereira, who has been convicted of embezzlement, was sentenced to 13 years and seven months, and ordered to pay a fine of $2 million.
The remaining former executives -- Tomeu Vadell, Jorge Toledo, Jose Luis Zambrano and Alirio Zambrano -- received the same sentence as Cardenas.