Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani on Wednesday met with Venezuela’s “acting President” Delcy Rodríguez and other members of the Venezuelan socialist regime in Caracas.
Al Thani arrived to Venezuela on Tuesday, the highest-ranked foreign official to visit the South American country following the January 3 U.S. law enforcement operation in Caracas that resulted in the arrest of deposed socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The Qatari prime minister was received by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil at Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar international airport.
Exact details of the Qatari prime minister’s agenda in Venezuela have not been publicly disclosed by either country at press time. According to the left-wing propaganda network Telesur, Al Thani’s official visit aims to fulfill a “work agenda that seeks to enhance and strengthen diplomatic relations” between the countries.
Al Thani reportedly met with Rodríguez and other regime figures at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas on Wednesday. According to the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal, Al Thani and Rodríguez’s main focus was a “thorough review of the comprehensive cooperation agreement between the two nations.”
Following the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, Qatar expressed its willingness to serve as a mediator between the United States and Venezuela, citing past experiences at establishing dialogues as an intermediator. Days after Maduro’s arrest, the Venezuelan regime released a statement thanking Al Thani for accompanying “international efforts to obtain proof of life” of Maduro and Flores. The pair is presently detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn awaiting trial on multiple narco-terrorism charges.
Rodríguez visited Qatar in April 2025 at a time when she served as Maduro’s vice president prior to visiting China. According to Telesur, a network largely funded by the Venezuelan regime, the 2025 Rodríguez-led delegation “laid the foundations for technological and commercial exchange that could be further developed with the arrival of the Qatari Prime Minister in Venezuela.”
The propaganda network claimed that Al Thani’s arrival, and the recent appointment of a new Qatari ambassador to Caracas, “ratify” a purported alliance between both countries following a roadmap allegedly outlined by Maduro mainly centered on key areas such as energy and tourism. Maduro visited Doha in 2022 and met with Al Thani at the time.
The Venezuelan regime, under “acting President” Rodríguez, is collaborating with the U.S. following Maduro’s arrest and, with the help of the United States, is starting to sell its oil at a profit. Revenue from the first sales of Venezuelan oil under its new collaboration with the United States was held in U.S. government-controlled bank accounts in Qatar, with reports published at the time describing the Middle Eastern country as a “neutral venue” until a more definitive method was established.
Last week, U.S. Energy Secretary Christ Wright told NBC News during his visit to Caracas that Venezuelan oil revenue will no longer be deposited at the U.S. government bank account in Qatar. Sec Wright explained that the Qatar bank account was used for the initial sales because the funds faced risk of seizure by Venezuelan creditors seeking to claim them. The Venezuelan socialist regime owes billions of dollars worth of debts and from assets unjustly expropriated to international companies such as U.S. oil company ConocoPhillips.
“An account was set up in Qatar, controlled by the U.S. government the whole time, to land that money in and then send the money from there down to Venezuela,” Wright told NBC News on Thursday. “Now we have an account at the U.S. Treasury. The money won’t go to Qatar anymore.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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