The 75-year-old opposition candidate is on a tour of Latin American capitals to pile pressure Maduro to relinquish power.
Earlier this week he met in Washington with US President Joe Biden, who backed a “peaceful transfer back to democratic rule.”
He and Machado held telephone talks Wednesday with French President Emmanuel Macron, who insisted that the “will of the Venezuelan people must be respected” — a reference to the opposition’s claim of election victory.
Gonzalez Urrutia has voiced tentative plans to fly to Caracas this week to take power but the plan was deemed unlikely to go ahead.
On Wednesday, he handed over the unofficial July 28 voting tallies which the opposition said proved his victory to Panama for safekeeping.
‘FBI official’ arrested
Maduro, who frequently claims to be the target of US coup plots, meanwhile claimed a senior FBI and a senior US military official were among seven so-called “mercenaries” arrested a day earlier.
He said the two Americans, about whom he gave no further details, were arrested alongside two Colombian “hitmen” and three Ukrainians, all of whom he said were plotting “terrorist acts.”
Several civil society and opposition figures have also been rounded up in a week beset with tensions.
The Popular Democratic Front, a coalition of opposition parties, said Enrique Marquez, who ran in the July election but later backed Gonzalez Urrutia’s victory claim was “arbitrarily detained”.
The Espacio Publico press freedom NGO said its director Carlos Correa was detained in central Caracas by “hooded men presumed to be officials.”
A day earlier, Gonzalez Urrutia said his son-in-law was detained while taking his children to school.
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, historically a leftist ally of Maduro, criticized the detentions and said he would not attend Maduro’s swearing-in.
Panama’s Foreign Minister Javier Martinez-Acha, for his part, described Maduro as a “tyrant.”
© 2025 AFP
