Two repatriation flights carrying hundreds of Venezuelan migrants who had been living in the United States arrived on Wednesday at the international airport near Caracas, highlighting a rare example of cooperation between the two countries as tensions simmer over a U.S. military pressure campaign targeting Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro.
The flights were the first to arrive since President Trump declared last week that Venezuelan airspace was “closed in its entirety,” although he has no legal authority over that airspace. Venezuela’s government had asserted that Mr. Trump’s declaration meant that such flights were halted.
But communication between the two governments seemed to remain alive, if on life support. Yván Gil, Venezuela’s foreign minister, said that U.S. authorities had asked Venezuela’s government to receive the flights, and Mr. Maduro “immediately approved the request because it concerns the return of our compatriots.”
Some confusion over the safety of flying to and from Venezuela has emerged in recent weeks as the United States carryies out deadly strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific that American officials claim were carrying illicit drugs. Several airlines temporarily suspended their international routes into the country.
Venezuela’s government responded last week by banning the airlines from landing in the country after they failed to meet a deadline to resume operations. Mr. Trump’s declaration that Venezuela’s airspace was closed, coming after his previous assertions that the United States would carry out land strikes in Venezuela, fueled more safety concerns.
“You are seeing the normality of the operations of this airport,” Mr. Gil, the foreign minister, said at Simón Bolívar International Airport as he sought to assuage such concerns. “Our civil aeronautics system is one of the safest and works perfectly.”
The first repatriation flight to arrive on Wednesday at the airport carried 304 Venezuelans who were in Mexico, where the United States has been sending many deported Venezuelans. The second flight departed from Phoenix and carried 266 Venezuelans, authorities said.
It was not immediately clear whether all of the Venezuelans on the two flights had been deported or if some voluntarily chose to leave the United States.
Venezuela has regularly been accepting such repatriation flights since the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown began this year in the United States. The last such flight had arrived in Venezuela on Friday, a day before Mr. Trump had declared Venezuelan airspace closed.
Despite the arrival of the flights, relations remain tense between the two countries. Since early September, the United States has carried out 21 strikes in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing at least 83 people.
The Trump administration contends the strikes are aimed at combating the flow of illegal drugs from Venezuela, though the country is a much smaller player in the global narcotics trade than Mexico or Colombia.
Trump administration officials have argued that the strikes are lawful because Mr. Trump has determined that the United States is in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels.
However, experts in laws governing the use of military force have said the strikes are illegal because the U.S. military is not allowed to intentionally target civilians who pose no imminent threat of violence.
The first such strikes, on Sept. 2, have been under particular scrutiny, and Admiral Bradley and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are set to go to Capitol Hill on Thursday to answer questions about those strikes amid an uproar over the killing of two survivors.
Simon Romero is a Times correspondent covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. He is based in Mexico City.
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