U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will be cancelling the second leg of his Latin American trip that was announced last month in order to meet with Ukrainian interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and President Obama in Washington this week. The Vice President, who is currently in Chile for Michelle Bachelet’s inauguration, will no longer meet with Dominican president Danilo Medina to discuss regional cooperation, AFP reported yesterday.
Biden took advantage of his time in Chile to meet with Presidents Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico and Ollanta Humala of Peru to discuss the recent conflict in Venezuela. In written comments to Chile’s daily newspaper El Mercurio, Biden denounced President Nicolás Maduro’s administration’s handling of the largely peaceful student protests. The comments came after the Organization of American States voted 29 to 3 last Friday to not send a mission to Venezuela, standing in solidarity with the government. Only the U.S., Canada and Panama opposed the declaration.
Biden’s aides confirmed that the vice president intends to reschedule his trip to the Dominican Republic in order to meet with President Medina.
