Chávez Will Restore Ambassador to U.S.

MATTHEW COWLEY

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad & Tobago -- Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez said Saturday he's ready to send an ambassador back to the U.S., according to the Venezuelan government news service.

"I have spoken to Roy Chaderton -- currently Venezuela's ambassador to the Organization of American States -- and I have appointed him as candidate for the embassy in the United States," Mr. Chávez said. "Now we must wait for Washington to provide the authorization so he can take up the post."

Hugo Chavez

The U.S. and Venezuela haven't exchanged ambassadors since September 2008, when Mr. Chávez kicked out the U.S. ambassador out of solidarity with Bolivia's President Evo Morales, a chief ally.

The Bolivian expelled the U.S. ambassador, Philip Goldberg, last September, accusing him of working to overthrow Bolivia's far-left government. Bolivia followed up by expelling another U.S. diplomat in March for the same reason.

Mr. Chávez's remarks Saturday, which were made on the sidelines of the fifth Summit of the Americas, were part of a rapprochement between the Venezuelan leader and the U.S.

His tense, vitriolic relationship with former U.S. President George W. Bush has dissolved into one with Obama that has started with respect and even friendship. On Friday, Mr. Obama shook Mr. Chávez hands while the two were waiting for the inaugural ceremony to start.

"I want to be your friend," Mr. Chávez said to the U.S. president.

Both leaders are doubtless still feeling their way around this new relationship.

Saturday, Mr. Chávez handed Mr. Obama a book, "The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent," by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, which chronicles U.S. and European economic and political interference in the region.

An aide to Mr. Obama later suggested the U.S. president was unlikely to read the book, given that it was written in Spanish.