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US top envoy calls for ‘dialogue’ in rare call with Nicaragua FM | News

Blinken called for dialogue in a rare high-level contact between the two countries, a day after 222 prisoners were released.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with his Nicaraguan counterpart, foreign minister Denis Moncada, in a rare high-level contact between the two countries.

The call on Friday came the day after Managua release 222 political prisoners arrested in crackdowns following anti-government protests that began in the Latin American country in 2018. Most of those prisoners were allowed to go to the United States.

The move is seen as an attempt by President Daniel Ortega to begin mending relations with the US. Relations have severely deteriorated in recent years as regional and Western powers have increasingly criticized Ortega’s actions and Washington has imposed sanctions. series of sanctions.

In a brief statement released after the call Friday, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said Blinken and Moncada discussed the inmates and “the importance of constructive dialogue” build”.

Price had previously said that weeks of negotiations had taken place prior to the release of the prisoner, although Ortega denied extensive negotiations prior to his release.

Washington said nothing was promised to Ortega in exchange for the release of the prisoners.

U.S. officials said all of those released had arrived in the United States, with the exception of two of the prisoners who chose to stay in Nicaragua.

One of the prisoners chose to stay, the Catholic bishop Rolando Alvarezwas sentenced to 26 years in prison on Friday, stripped of his citizenship and fined.

US officials say they will allow former prisoners to stay in the country for at least two years, and will provide medical and legal assistance. Spain then said it would provide citizenship to release.

Meanwhile, a court official in the Nicaraguan capital Managua said the prisoners had been “deported” and called them “traitors to their homeland”.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, the opposition leader Juan Sebastien ChamorroOne of those freed, said Ortega released the prisoners after “political pressure” increased.

“I think (Ortega) basically wants to send the opposition abroad into exile,” he said.

A former revolutionary, Ortega served as president of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990.

He returned to the presidency in 2007, and has been increasingly accused of abusing his power and seeking to consolidate power, including removing presidential term limits and taking control of all branches of government. government.

After the mass arrests of opposition figures, Ortega was easily elected to a fourth term in November 2021.

US President Joe Biden, at the time, criticized the vote as “mute election”.



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