The interim “president” of Venezuela, former Nicolás Maduro henchwoman Delcy Rodríguez, held an in-person meeting with Islamist Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul on Monday, seeking expanded investments in the impoverished socialist country.
Rodríguez, who took over following Maduro’s arrest in an American law enforcement operation in January, arrived in Turkey after traveling to India where she met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is seeking to expand Venezuelan sales of crude oil to the country, which has one of the world’s most robust oil markets and expansive refinery infrastructure but few domestic crude resources.
Conversely, Venezuela is home to the world’s largest known oil reserves outside of the United States but, following over two decades of socialism, its refineries and other oil facilities are derelict and largely unusable. Under Maduro, the Venezuelan regime had brought in Iranian engineers to help rehabilitate some of the country’s largest oil facilities, but those programs appear to have ended after Maduro’s arrest and Rodríguez’s public decision to collaborate with the United States.
Erdogan, while presenting himself domestically as a “free market,” religious right-wing leader, has for years aligned himself with some of the world’s most repressive leftist regimes, most prominently Venezuela. The Turkish leader celebrated Maduro’s various sham elections and welcomed him on multiple occasions for visits to the Middle Eastern country, seeking to expand bilateral trade. Erdogan made only symbolic statements opposing Maduro’s arrest, however, and his administration has transitioned to pursuing improved ties to Rodríguez.
According to the Turkish state outlet Anadolu Agency, Erdogan welcomed Rodríguez in Istanbul to discuss bilateral cooperation, particularly in economics. Turkey’s Communications Directorate shared in a readout of the meeting that Erdogan “noted during the meeting that Türkiye will always stand by the friendly people of Venezuela.”
“He also stated that Türkiye remains committed to further advancing cooperation with Venezuela in many areas, particularly trade, energy, and mining,” according to Anadolu. The outlet added that a concrete goal the two agreed on during the meeting was to increase the volume of trade between Venezuela and Turkey to $3 billion.
The Venezuelan independent newspaper El Nacional observed that bilateral trade volume is currently at $448 million, as per the latest statistics at the end of 2025. About $251 million of this volume was represented by Turkish imports of Venezuelan products, likely mostly oil, and $197 million consisted of Turkish goods exported to Venezuela.
“This balance places [Turkey’s] commercial exchange with Venezuela temporarily under what Turkey maintains with nations such as Peru and Chile, and significantly below those registered with Brazil and Colombia, the main commercial partners of the Eurasian power in the region,” El Nacional reported.
Anadolu’s Venezuelan counterpart, the television network VTV, described the meeting between the two heads of state as “fruitful” and geared toward “pushing forward mutual wholesale development and consolidating bilateral relations at the highest level.” Among the topics Rodríguez reportedly raised with Erdogan were “commerce, investment, energy, mining, housing, and education.”
In Venezuela, the head of Maduro’s United Socialist Party (PSUV), Diosdado Cabello, told reporters on Monday that Rodríguez’s travel to Turkey was necessary to diversify Venezuela’s struggling economy, which has historically relied almost exclusively on selling oil.
“It is not just food, not just oil, not just gas,” Cabello was quoted as saying. “Venezuela is diversifying and these visits that President Delcy Rodríguez and the ministers make out of the country… seek to consolidate Venezuela’s relationship with all these countries.”
Rodríguez’s messages from New Delhi were similar to what surfaced from her meetings in Istanbul. The current head of the country listed “transportation, health, energy complementarity, agriculture, science, and technology” as sectors where she envisioned further cooperation with India which she discussed with Modi. While her public statements did not explicitly disclose this, India could potentially greatly benefit from expanded oil purchases from Venezuela as it struggles with trade disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz caused by the ongoing war between America and Iran. Reports indicate that India has significantly increased its Venezuela oil purchases, reportedly buying 427,000 barrels per day from the Latin American country in May.
In Turkey, Rodríguez found a more familiar friend to Bolivarian socialism than Modi. Erdogan was among the most vocal supporters of the Maduro regime during the 2010s crisis in which socialism had resulted in mass malnourishment and, as a result, widespread protests in the country. In 2016, Erdogan went out of his way to condemn the pro-democracy protests in Venezuela as “violent attempts to destabilize,” apparently returning the favor after Maduro condemned the alleged failed coup d’etat against Erdogan that year. Maduro met with Erdogan in Turkey in October of that year.
In 2018, Maduro was back in Turkey for Erdogan’s inauguration after an election marked by violence and the imprisoning of a major presidential candidate. During that visit, Maduro was keen on selling the Turkish government Venezuelan gold, which investigators later found linked to illicit, environmentally unsound, gang-linked mining operations. Turkey ultimately signed a gold mining deal with Venezuela in 2024.
A brief 2018 Maduro stop in Turkey had caused international controversy when photos surfaced of the dictator and his wife, Cilia Flores, feasting at Nusr-Et, the lavish steakhouse owned by communist chef Nusret Gökçe, known as “Salt Bae” for his signature move of salting food. “Salt Bae” ultimately deleted social media posts thanking Maduro for visiting after Venezuelan exiles in the United States began protesting regularly in front of his steakhouse in Miami, Florida.
At the time, Maduro reportedly claimed he was invited to the restaurant by the Turkish government.
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