ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Algeria’s president met on Thursday with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was welcomed with pomp as he visited the North African nation.
Maduro arrived Wednesday evening, greeted at the Algiers airport by Algeria’s prime minister, as he began what Algeria’s state APS news agency called a two-day “working and friendship visit.”
In a welcoming ceremony, Maduro and President Abdelmadjid Tebboune reviewed a detachment of the Republican Guard as the anthems of both countries’ played.
There was no immediate information on topics discussed during their meeting that followed.
Like all visiting leaders, Maduro paid homage to the “martyrs” of Algeria’s brutal, seven-year independence war with France, laying a wreath of flowers at the national monument to the fallen and observing a minute of silence.
Maduro’s visit to Algeria follows a visit in Turkey.
It comes amid a U.S. summit of the Americas in Los Angeles.
Venezuela, along with Cuba and Nicaragua, were not invited by the administration of President Joe Biden due to the problems with democracy and human rights in those countries. That led to a decision by Mexico’s president not to attend.
