AMBASSADOR Cheryl Miles has presented her credentials to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro at the Miraflores Presidential Palace in downtown Caracas on Wednesday, Venezuelan media has reported.Ambassador Miles submitted her credentials when the German, Egyptian, Indonesian and Mexican Ambassadors submitted theirs.

In mid-February last year, the career diplomat was accredited by Venezuela’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Delcy Gómez Rodríguez, after several months of delay, but President Maduro ordered his Foreign Affairs Minister to stay the accreditation of Ambassador Miles after accusing Guyana’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Carl Greenidge, of launching a verbal attack on Venezuela while on official duty in the United States.

“It is nonsense to initiate the diplomatic way of regularisation, the appointment and admission of ambassadors, and suddenly go to the United States to launch attacks against Venezuela,” Maduro had said.

In response, Minister Greenidge had reiterated Guyana’s commitment to bilateral relations between the countries.

It was only after participating in a meeting between President David Granger and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York last September that President Maduro agreed to accredit Guyana’s ambassador.

Ambassador Miles previously served in Venezuela from 1985 to 1992. She was recalled to Guyana, and served as Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before being posted as Ambassador to Brazil.

In 2008, she returned to Guyana after a nine-year stint in Brasilia, but the then Bharrat Jagdeo administration chose to discontinue her service, and so she left, parting amicably with the Government and ending 34 years of service to the profession.

Miles was the first new ambassador to be named by the coalition government which took office after the May 11 elections last year.