US urges Venezuela to release remaining political prisoners
The US secretary of state also discusses laying the groundwork for 'free, fair, and credible elections'.
**US urges Venezuela to free remaining political prisoners**
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Oliver Blanco and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held talks on Monday
The US has called on Venezuela to release the political prisoners still being held in the South American nation.
More than 1,000 political prisoners have been freed since US forces seized Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a military raid on Caracas on 3 January and took him to New York, where he faces trial on drug-trafficking and torture charges.
But Venezuelan prisoners' rights group Foro Penal says 322 people remain in detention.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met his Venezuelan counterpart, Oliver Blanco, on Monday, where he pressed for their release and discussed reforms intended to lay the groundwork for free, fair, and credible elections, the US state department said.
The release of political prisoners has long been a demand of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.
Machado, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025, returned to Venezuela on 25 October after living in exile for almost a year. One of her first meetings was with relatives of political detainees.
Many of those detained were arrested after the 2024 presidential election.
The National Electoral Council (CNE) - dominated by government loyalists - declared incumbent Nicolás Maduro the winner of the election even though copies of the voting tallies gathered by the opposition and checked by independent media indicated that the opposition candidate had won.
The Carter Center, which had sent independent observers to Venezuela, also said the election "could not be considered democratic".
A UN fact-finding mission found, external that in the months that followed, the Venezuelan government carried out "a harsh repression against persons perceived as political opponents or simply because they express dissent or critical views against the authorities".
After US forces seized Maduro, his loyal vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, was sworn in as interim president.
Although Rodríguez has the support of the Trump administration, opposition parties inside Venezuela have been voicing frustration over the slow pace of reforms.
In Monday's statement, the US state department said it remained committed to US President Donald Trump's three-phase plan, made up of "stabilisation, economic recovery and political reconciliation, and democratic transition".
A week ago, Rubio told journalists that Venezuela's "election infrastructure" had to be replaced for new elections to be valid.
"Not in 10 years, not in five years, not in two years; it needs to happen quickly under the timelines that we've established," he insisted.
Days later, Rodríguez told Venezuelans in a televised address that "there will be elections" under a "renewed" electoral authority.
However, she gave no timeline for when the election might take place.
Opposition leader Machado, meanwhile, has been pressing for elections to be held in 2027.
At one point she proposed 24 July 2027 - the anniversary of the birth of independence hero Simón Bolivar - but she has since gone back to calling for a vote at some point in the next year.