We welcome the release from Venezuela of six wrongly detained US citizens – Jorge Toledo, Tomeu Vadell, José Luis Zambrano, Alirio Zambrano, Matthew Heath and Osman Khan – as well as US legal permanent resident Jose Pereira. After extraordinary efforts and perseverance on the part of the State Department and the wider US government over many months, these unjustly detained Americans and legal permanent residents are free and will soon be reunited with their loved ones. I am grateful to Presidential Hostage Special Envoy Roger Carstens and the rest of our State Department team for their tireless efforts to achieve this outcome.
While we celebrate the release of these US citizens from Venezuela, we still have more work to do. The safety and security of Americans around the world is my top priority as Secretary of State, and we will continue to push for the release of all U.S. citizens wrongfully detained abroad.