WASHINGTON: After an especially ugly week in the hostile relationship between the Bush administration and the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s envoy here tried on Thursday to salvage some civility, saying his country seeks ‘mature and rational relations’ with Washington and will remain a ‘reliable’ source of energy to all foreign customers including the United States.

The State Department responded in kind, with a spokesman saying Washington was ‘open to a good relationship with Venezuela’ and hoped for a ‘positive one’. The spokesman, Sean McCormack, said the two countries were cooperating in the fight against drugs, and that the administration was prepared to work with governments across the political spectrum, including those with ‘left-of-centre’ views.

But the exchange did little to dispel a growing sense among officials and analysts that the current political breach between Caracas and Washington — still major oil trading partners and once longtime democratic allies — is becoming potentially irreparable. In the past week, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has compared Chavez to Adolf Hitler, and the administration’s top intelligence official, John Negroponte, has condemned his ties with Iran and North Korea. Venezuela has expelled a US naval attache on charges of spying, and Washington has expelled a senior Venezuelan diplomat in return.—Dawn/LAT-WP News Service