When Nicolás Maduro declared himself Venezuela’s president once again after a 2024 election that the United States and more than 50 other countries declared fraudulent, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was one of the few foreign leaders to call.
When Erdogan was inaugurated for a third term in 2023, Maduro flew from Caracas to be there for a fellow leader he has called his “brother.” Their governments have exchanged numerous cabinet-level visits in recent years, usually to sign strategic agreements, and maintain a healthy trade relationship.
So it would come as no surprise, experts say, if Maduro — whom President Donald Trump has said he wants to push out of office “the easy way … or the hard way” — is looking to Turkey as a possible safe harbor if he decides to flee Caracas.
The hard way, Trump has all but said, involves the use of the massive U.S. naval and air forces he has assembled in the Caribbean near Venezuela’s coast to try to capture him or destroy his military’s will to fight.
“Turkey is the perfect place for him,” said a person familiar with administration deliberations over the current operations near Venezuela. Maduro “trusts Erdogan … [and] Erdogan has good relations with Trump. … At end of day, what are realistic and acceptable outcomes? Obviously, people are thinking about it, working on it.”
A potential Turkish exile deal for Maduro, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the administration, could come with “guarantees,” presumably ensuring he would not be extradited to the United States, where he is under indictment for drug trafficking, corruption and narcoterrorism, with a $50 million bounty on his head.
The International Criminal Court, on the request of several countries in the hemisphere, has been investigating alleged “crimes against humanity,” including illegal detentions, in Venezuela since shortly after Maduro first came to office in 2013.
Asked if a Maduro exile to Turkey is being or has been discussed, or if Trump, as he said Tuesday, “might talk to him” directly, deputy White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said “no comment.” The Turkish Embassy in Washington did not respond to queries.
The Venezuelan government has denied repeated reports that Maduro is considering exile. In a speech to supporters Tuesday in Caracas, Maduro said Venezuelans had to be “capable of defending every inch of this blessed land from any sort of imperialist threat or aggression,” and vowed he would “give my all” to that cause.
The administration claims that Maduro heads two separate “terrorist” cartels it says are using the profits of drug trafficking to engage in an armed conflict with the United States and that its actions are legal under the laws of war. Amid various justifications for blowing up more than 20 small boats allegedly carrying narcotics, killing more than 80 people aboard, Trump has also said Maduro emptied his country’s prisons and “insane asylums” to send “millions” of illegal Venezuelans to the U.S.
Those claims have come under intense scrutiny by Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans who question both their veracity and legal underpinnings. This week, after six Democratic members of Congress, all military or CIA veterans, posted a video reminding U.S. troops that they have a duty not to comply with illegal orders, Trump labeled them “seditious” and potentially “punishable by DEATH.”
The Defense Department almost immediately announced that it was launching an investigation into one of them, retired naval officer and astronaut Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona), and the other lawmakers said Tuesday the FBI has requestedto interview them.
Numerous polls have indicated that a majority of Americans do not favor U.S. military intervention in Venezuela and a large part of Trump’s MAGA base — including some cabinet members — have quietly suggested that the headlong push toward war could be a betrayal of his “no more wars” campaign promise.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a former Florida senator, has long argued for a tough posture against Maduro. But several people familiar with White House deliberations, both in Trump’s first term and now, have insisted that the hard line comes directly from the president.
Maduro is not without international friends. Cuba reportedly has supplied personal security for Maduro and senior regime officials. Russia has been a close ally, supplying weaponry for the Venezuelan military and filling in economic holes left by harsh U.S. sanctions. As U.S. pressure escalated, Maduro reached out to Russia, China and Iran last month with appeals to enhance its worn military capabilities and solicit assistance, The Post reported. Several large Russian cargo planes with unknown cargos reportedly landed recently in Venezuela.
In a phone call Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told his Venezuelan counterpart Yvan Gil that the U.S. “threat of the use of force against [Venezuela] is a clear example of the gross violation of the fundamental principles of the UN Charter and the peremptory norms of international law,” according to Iranian media.
Araghchi condemned Washington’s “bullying approach” toward Venezuela and other Latin American countries, the media reports said.
But experts discounted Russia, Iran or Cuba as likely destinations should Maduro decide his time is up.
“If he’s worried about guarantees and people holding up their end of the deal” a Turkish landing “provides more security,” the person familiar with administration thinking said. Maduro “has been moving gold there forever” and he and his extended family and cronies “have enough wealth and networks there to keep him happy.”
Turkey holds mining concessions for much of Venezuela’s substantial gold reserves. U.S. officials in the past have alleged that gold sent from Venezuela to Turkey for refinement has found its way to Iran and into Turkish accounts personally held by Maduro and other regime officials.
Turkey also would jump at the chance to be seen as essential to Trump’s foreign policy goals, said Lisel Hintz, a scholar on Turkey and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Ankara could try to leverage its support to get U.S. approval for F-35 fighter jets, after it was booted from the program for purchasing Russian S-400 antiaircraft defenses.
Erdogan, whose government has allowed senior Hamas officials to maintain residences in Turkey, has been praised by the White House for helping to achieve the Gaza ceasefire by bringing Hamas to the table and getting it to sign on to Trump’s peace plan.
Turkey has also hosted early-stage peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv and is expected to do so again if Trump’s proposed peace plan for Ukraine progresses. And it was Erdogan who encouraged and facilitated the advance by Syrian militants into Damascus that late last year brought about the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
Venezuela could be “the fourth conflict that Erdogan is helping to end with Trump,” said Soner Cagaptay, a Turkish American political scientist who directs the Turkish research program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“Turkey is the sweet spot for both Trump and Maduro,” Cagaptay said. “If [Maduro] is in Russia, he disappears,” much as Assad has in Russian exile. “If he goes to Cuba,” where the economy is collapsing and there is little freedom of movement, as in Iran, “good luck.”
Maduro exiting to Turkey, he said, “doesn’t involve any loss of face for Trump, Maduro won’t have gone to the dark side. For Maduro, he won’t feel unsafe.”
Yeganeh Torbati in Istanbul contributed to this report.
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