- Title: Venezuela's 'dictator' Maduro must step down-Peruvian president
- Date: 11th August 2017
- Summary: LIMA, PERU (AUGUST 11, 2017) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF THE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE VARIOUS OF PERUVIAN PRESIDENT, PEDRO PABLO KUCZYNSKI, AT START OF INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PERUVIAN PRESIDENT, PEDRO PABLO KUCZYNSKI, SAYING: "I am not going to meet with Mr. Maduro, sorry… [JOURNALIST ASKING: What message do you have for Maduro?] For him to leave, because he is a dictator and has carried out a coup with a fraudulent election to eliminate their congress and he has replaced it with a so-called Constituent Assembly. There are many people in jail, there are political prisoners, I don't have a reason to busy myself with what happens inside Venezuela, but this has big consequences for other countries. In Colombia thousands of Venezuelans are arriving every day and here we've opened our doors so that they can come." GENERAL VIEW OF KUCZYNSKI MEETING WITH JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PERUVIAN PRESIDENT, PEDRO PABLO KUCZYNSKI, SAYING: "The U.N. works through the Security Council which is made up of countries that are never going to vote against Venezuela. So, the U.N. is not the adequate vehicle for this regional conflict." KUCZYNSKI AT TABLE DURING INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PERUVIAN PRESIDENT, PEDRO PABLO KUCZYNSKI, SAYING: "This year between the Car Wash (Lava Jato regional corruption scandal) and El Nino, we lost 2 percent (GDP growth), we would have been at 4.5 percent and we're going to end up at 2.5 percent, maybe a little more. Next year, we'll be at 4.5 percent, I think we'll recover what was lost." KUCZYNSKI AND JOURNALISTS AT TABLE DURING INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PERUVIAN PRESIDENT, PEDRO PABLO KUCZYNSKI, SAYING: "We're opening up commerce as much as we can. The Pacific Alliance has invited four countries that were all in TPP to be associate members - Canada, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand - and I think that's very positive. Peru is negotiating with Australia and later that will turn into a bigger agreement." KUCZYNSKI AND JOURNALISTS AT TABLE DURING INTERVIEW, JOURNALIST ASKS ABOUT FORMER PERUVIAN PRESIDENT FUJIMORI'S HUMANITARIAN PARDON (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PERUVIAN PRESIDENT, PEDRO PABLO KUCZYNSKI, SAYING: "Everyone who reads the newspaper knows that he (former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori) has been in the emergency room many times. He's not a person who's running races at the moment, right? Of course at his age you don't run races. There is nothing (there) that isn't publicly known." KUCZYNSKI RISES FROM SEAT, BIDS FAREWELL TO JOURNALISTS CLOSE SHOT OF KUCZYNSKI KUCZYNSKI EXITS ROOM
- Embargoed: 25th August 2017 21:49
- Keywords: Peru Pedro Pablo Kuczynski Reuters summit Latin America Venezuela
- Location: LIMA, PERU
- City: LIMA, PERU
- Country: Peru
- Topics: Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA0016TPQN2B
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski on Friday (August 11) urged Venezuela's "dictator" Nicolas Maduro to step down and refused the socialist leader's call for the two to meet face-to-face along with other presidents in the region.
Speaking in an interview for Reuters Latin American Investment Summit, the centrist leader said Maduro had lost all credibility since forming the constituent assembly, an all-powerful body made up of Maduro's Socialist Party loyalists. "He's a dictator and has carried out a coup, through a fraudulent election to eliminate Congress," Kuczynski said in the presidential palace in the historical centre of Lima.
The comment marked the fiercest criticism yet that Kuczynski, a 78-year-old Oxford-and-Princeton trained economist and public administrator, has lobbed at Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader narrowly elected to replace Hugo Chavez in 2013.
On Kuczynski's watch, Peru has led Latin American efforts to pressure Venezuela to enact democratic reforms and signal to the world that much of the region is troubled by its deepening political and economic crises.
Kuczynski also discussed his country's economy saying that the combination of weather disasters brought about by El Nino and the regional corruption scandal known as "Jet Wash" knocked two points off expected GDP growth in 2017. Kuczynski said he expects stronger growth to resume next year and is pressing ahead with expanded trade ties across the Pacific. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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