Buenos Aires Herald 
Argentine diplomatic personnel in the embassy in Caracas left their posts on Thursday in compliance with the 72-hour deadline to leave Venezuela given by the government on Tuesday. The Maduro administration expelled all diplomatic representation from seven countries that questioned the transparency of the Sunday election results.
The Argentine Foreign Ministry published a statement confirming the departure and announcing that Brazilian diplomatic personnel will take over the compound in the Venezuelan capital. Six members of the Maduro opposition who have requested political asylum will remain inside the embassy, as the government denied their request to leave the country together with the Argentine diplomats.
“Argentina thanks the Brazilian government for its generosity in accepting this request in the face of an emergency,” said the ministry communiqué. It added that the neighboring country will not only take over the embassy and the official residence but will also assume representation of Argentine interests in Venezuela.
President Javier Milei also thanked Brazil for its actions and praised the bond between the two countries, saying that their “ties of friendship” are “very strong and historical.” “I have no doubt that we will soon reopen our embassy in a free and democratic Venezuela,” he wrote in a post on X.
The situation in Caracas
Tension in and around the Argentine embassy in Venezuela had been sky high ever since Milei called Maduro a “dictator” and said the results of the election were fraudulent in an X post early Monday. The Argentine Foreign Ministry also published a communiqué rejecting the result outright.
Shortly after, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil announced the withdrawal of all diplomatic personnel from the seven countries that questioned the election results: Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Panama, and Uruguay. He also demanded that each country recall its representatives from Caracas.
Gil issued a document on Tuesday morning to inform its Argentine counterpart that it had decided to “demand the withdrawal of Argentine diplomats and consuls in a 72-hour timeframe.”
Argentine diplomatic personnel, the text said, will have “all guarantees for their immediate withdrawal from the national territory.” However, it stated that those guarantees did not apply to the six Venezuelan aides. The embassy will have to resolve their situation, the government added.
According to Pedro Urruchurtu Noselli, a collaborator of opposition leader María Corina Machado, who is under asylum in the embassy, officers from the national police tactical team attempted to take over the building while wearing hoods and carrying rifles on Monday evening but left later in the night.
The Venezuelan public power company also cut the power to the embassy building on Tuesday noon and it remained that way as of the early hours of Wednesday, according to a post from Machado’s campaign team. Police forces once again surrounded the embassy on Wednesday.
