Day: September 26, 2026

Reuters spoke to five sources close to the talks, who say the vote is stuck behind replacing all 32 Supreme Court judges and the five directors of the electoral council, with voter rolls and basic logistics eating another year after that.

María Corina Machado, blocked from flying home at least seven times this year, has been left out of the negotiations entirely.

Rubio’s argument for going slow is that whoever wins should not inherit an economic catastrophe, and he has a point about a country Maduro emptied out.

Here is the thing Washington seems to be missing.

The oil deals will outlast this administration, but the legitimacy of the government signing them will not, and contracts inked by an unelected caretaker are exactly the kind that a future Venezuelan congress tears up.

Getting Machado home and a date on the calendar is what makes those barrels permanent.

Source: Reuters / Writer: Daniel

The offer is a seven-day countdown to reopening Hormuz and a pause in fighting on every front including Lebanon, in exchange for lifting the blockade, unfreezing the money and waiving oil sanctions.

A U.S. official called the mediated talks positive and constructive.

A senior Iranian official then told Reuters that even if the deal goes through, Tehran gives up nothing on enrichment and won’t ship its highly enriched uranium out of the country.

Inspectors are still on the table, and Pezeshkian said the IAEA can come back, so the question now is whether Trump takes monitoring without limits.

Watching the stockpile is not the same as shrinking it, and he has spent seven months saying the stockpile is the problem.

Source: Reuters, The Wall Street Journal / Writer: Daniel