WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th July, 2019) Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido's representatives in the United States are not using the building of the Venezuela embassy in Washington after taking control of the diplomatic facility, Co-director of Popular Resistance activist group Kevin Zeese told Sputnik.
"Right now, the Georgetown Embassy in basically vacant. They allowed the opposition to go in and get a photo taken while they were there, but they are not using it," Zeese said. "So, it's an empty embassy."
Zeese was among the four activists who were arrested in May by US Secret Service and State Department security. Zeese along with Margaret Flowers, Adrienne Pine and David Paul had resided at the embassy for nearly a month as guests of the Venezuelan government to protect the facility from being taken over by the US government and opposition leader Juan Guaido's representatives.
On May 17, a US judge ordered the release of the four activists - Margaret Flowers, Kevin Zeese, Adrienne Pine and David Paul - on the condition that they do not come within 100 feet of Venezuela's diplomatic facilities. The activists are also required to report to the court on a weekly basis and cannot travel abroad without permission.
"The US violated international law by entering the Embassy, by arresting us, by essentially invading the embassy with military troops. That was the violation of Vienna convention. The US needs to correct that mistake and the direction is the mutual protective power agreement," Zeese stressed.
Zeese pointed out that the solution to both the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington for Venezuela and the solution for the US Embassy in Caracas is a mutual protecting power agreement.
"We have been urging the US State Department to agree to allow Turkey to be the protecting power of Venezuela and for Switzerland to be the protective power for the United States," he noted. "US wants that in Caracas, and they've asked Caracas, the government, to approve that. Venezuela wants that in Washington, DC, they've asked the US government to approve that. And that's the solution."
The portion of that solution, he added, is a mutual protecting power agreement which is a long time diplomatic effort that goes back hundreds of years.
"It's incorporated into the Vienna convention, in the Geneva conventions, it's part of diplomacy, it's very normal. And that's the solution to both embassies," the activist added. "I think that this is still a viable solution, and the mutual protective power agreement will restore international law."
The State Department and Guaido's representatives have not yet responded to Sputnik requests to comment on the matter.
On Tuesday, Swiss Ambassador to the United States Martin Dahinden said at an event in Washington that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has not yet approved the agreement between the United States and Switzerland for the neutral country to become Washington's protective power.
Dahinden said protective power mandates are usually approved on the principal of reciprocity.
With the US considering opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country's legitimate interim president, it is unlikely that Maduro will approve Switzerland's protective power mandate.
Venezuela is experiencing a political-economic crisis that intensified in January after Guaido proclaimed himself interim president in a bid to oust Maduro. The United States soon thereafter started imposing sanctions on Venezuela and froze billions of Dollars of Venezuelan assets.
Russia has said the United States is strangling Venezuela with sanctions in an attempt to drag the Latin American nation into chaos.
Maduro has called Guaido a US puppet and accused the United States of orchestrating a coup in Venezuela to force a change of government and claim the country's vast natural resources.
