Talks with Venezuela 'positive and productive': US

After recent meetings between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and State Department advisor Thomas Shannon, the US government has called as "positive and productive" the bilateral talks which it affirmed will continue, the Spanish news agency Efe reported.

"These conversations were positive and productive, and they will continue," said Jeff Rathke, the State Department's press office chief, at his daily press briefing on Wednesday.

Rathke said Shannon was invited to Caracas by Maduro at first in early April, and after the Summit of the Americas in Panama he was invited to return to the Venezuelan capital to participate in another meeting.

"They had another conversation on May 12, so just a couple of weeks ago," Rathke added, although he refused to comment on Maduro's remarks made Tuesday, in which the Venezuelan leader said that the dialogue with the US was "going well."

The Venezuelan leader added, however, that he hoped that this dialogue would not be sabotaged by Venezuelan "terrorists" or by "far rightists" in the US.

Tensions between Washington and Caracas, which have had no ambassadors posted in each other's capitals since 2010, increased notably because of a decree signed in March by US President Barack Obama in which he declared Venezuela to be a "threat" to US national security and sanctioned a group of top Venezuelan officials for human rights violations.

On April 21, Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America, Roberta Jacobson, said that Washington was open to considering Venezuela's request to appoint current Venezuelan charge d'affaires in the US, Maximilian Arvelaez, to be ambassador to Washington, a gesture that appeared designed to reduce tensions in the relationship.