Delcy Rodríguez, Executive Vice President of the Republic, reported on Monday night that she received in her office the ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Robert Schuddeboom, to whom she conveyed the greetings of President Nicolás Maduro and with whom she discussed issues of the bilateral relationship, being that both nations are bordering through the islands of Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire, close to the northwestern Venezuelan coast.
The vice president pointed out that “the steps to follow for the reopening of the border between Venezuela and Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire” were reviewed.
It is worth noting that the relationship with the governments of the overseas territories of the Netherlands in the Caribbean, which adjoins Venezuelan waters, in fact Curaçao is only 25 kilometers from the mainland of Venezuela, has been interrupted several times in recent years, first since the Venezuelan side before interfering positions of one of the islands during the alleged interim period in February 2019.
Said interruption of the flow between neighbors ended, on the part of Venezuela, the March 10, 2019 when the Sector Vice President of the Economy, Tareck El Aissami, announced the opening of the borders with Brazil and the island of Arubaby instructions of the president, Nicolás Maduro, as part of the new relations of respect with the brother countries and the advance to a border of Peace.
On that occasion, El Aisami made the announcement at a press conference from the Casa Amarilla, headquarters of the Foreign Ministry in Caracas and accompanied by the then Foreign Minister, Jorge Arreaza, and other authorities of the Venezuelan State.
However, citing the migratory crisis that Venezuela suffered, driven by the same economic war that was reaching its pinnacle in those years, Aruba decided to close the border for three months and in June 2019, it renewed the restrictive measure on free movement. At that time, the Aruban government said that the new period of border closure would begin on June 10, and that Curaçao and the Netherlands were “on the same page regarding the extension.”
Then, last November, Vice President Rodríguez traveled to The Hague, the Netherlands, to participate in the hearings in the unilateral lawsuit filed by Guyana against Venezuela before the International Court of Justice for the situation of the Venezuelan Essequibo and was received by the representatives of the National Chancellery.
“We were received by the Foreign Ministry of the Netherlands in The Hague to participate in the hearings on the preliminary objections, presented by Venezuela against Guyana’s unilateral claim before the International Court of Justice. The Sun of Venezuela is born in the Essequibo!”, he said. Rodriguez at the time.
As a result of that visit of the deputy president to the Netherlands, the National Assembly of Venezuela, in the voice of deputy Fernando Bastidas, reported the creation, on November 23, of the Parliamentary friendship group with the Netherlands to strengthen bilateral relations between both nations and establish alliances, which were announced on June 1 by the president of Parliament, Jorge Rodríguez.
“It is important to note that there is a border relationship between Venezuela and the Netherlands, since on the North-Caribbean façade we border the islands of Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire, which belong to the territory of the Netherlands,” said the parliamentarian on that occasion. and said that the rapprochement will allow greater exchanges, commercial, cultural and political.
“The presence of the Executive Vice President, Delcy Rodríguez, in The Hague, is a sign of the activation of parliamentary peace diplomacy, carried out by the Bolivarian Government,” Bastidas stated.
