Nicaragua FM invites Antony Blinken for dialogue

• Antony Blinken and  Denis Moncada discussed the release of 222 political prisoners.
• Which was interpreted as an effort to mend fences with the US.
• Most of those detainees were given permission to visit America.

In a rare high-level conversation between the two nations, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called with his Nicaraguan counterpart, Foreign Minister Denis Moncada.

The call was made on Friday, one day after Managua freed 222 political prisoners who had been detained during crackdowns following the country’s 2018-starting antigovernmental rallies.

Most of those detainees were given permission to visit America.

President Daniel Ortega’s action has been interpreted as an effort to start mend fences with the US.

Since Washington began enacting a slew of sanctions against Ortega and other regional and Western powers, relations have drastically deteriorated.

The inmates and “the importance of constructive discussion” were topics that Blinken and Moncada discussed, according to a brief statement issued by the US State Department after the call on Friday.

Price had previously claimed that weeks of negotiations had taken place prior to the inmates’ release, but Ortega has refuted that claim.

According to Washington, Ortega received no promises in exchange for freeing the detainees.

All of those who were freed, according to US officials, travelled to the US, with the exception of two detainees who opted to remain in Nicaragua.

Catholic bishop Rolando Alvarez, one of those inmates who choose to remain, was given a 26-year prison term on Friday along with citizenship deprivation and a fine.

In addition to offering medical and legal support, US officials said they would permit the former inmates to remain in the US for at least two years.

Later, Spain declared that it would grant the released citizens citizenship.

Meanwhile, a court representative in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, said that the detainees had been “deported” and referred to them as “traitors to the nation.”

Speaking during a news conference on Friday, opposition leader Juan Sebastian Chamorro, who was among those released, said Ortega had freed the prisoners because “political pressure” had risen.

“I think (Ortega) wanted to basically send the opposition outside of the country into exile,” he said.

Ortega, a former revolutionary, presided over Nicaragua from 1979 until 1990.

When he won the presidency again in 2007, he was accused of violating people’s rights and attempting to consolidate power by eliminating presidential term limits and taking over all three parts of the government.

After the widespread detention of opposition leaders, Ortega won re-election for a fourth time with ease in November 2021.

At the time, US President Joe Biden criticized the election as a “pantomime election.”

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