Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said he’s willing to talk to U.S. President Donald Trump to address the crisis in Nicaragua, even though he condemns a US “military intervention.”
“I’ve said I’m willing to talk to him,” Daniel Ortega said in an interview with the French news network France 24.
“The beginning of the exchange, of a dialogue with a power like the United States […] is something necessary and indispensable,” Ortega said.
Ortega added that he’d like to go to the United Nations General Assembly at the end of September.
The Nicaraguan president nonetheless accused the United States of being behind the protests opposing his government that started in April.
“Basically we’re under threat,” from the United States Ortega said. “You can’t put anything past the United States, even military intervention.”
During the 80s, the revolutionary Sandinista government that came to power after toppling Anastasio Somoza’s dictatorship had to face the Contras, a right-wing guerrilla group financed by the United States. The Contras were initially trained and supported by the Argentine military dictatorship.
Now “there are armed groups […] trained by the United States,” Ortega insisted.
Protests against Ortega started in mid-April and spread throughout the country in response to government repression. Protests started over social security reforms but evolved into demands that Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, step down.
More than 320 people have been killed and over 2,000 have been injured. Thousands of Nicaraguans have also fled to Costa Rica out of fear of being arrested.
