US Secretary of State John Kerry will briefly meet with his Venezuelan counterpart on the sidelines of the Organisation of American States meeting here, a US official said.
The meeting is significant because Washington has not acknowledged the victory of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro -- the hand-picked successor of the late leftist icon Hugo Chavez -- in the mid-April presidential election.
Maduro won the controversial vote by a razor-thin margin in an election that his rival, centrist Henrique Capriles, has refused to concede.
Ties between Washington and Caracas have been testy for years, and currently neither side has exchanged ambassadors since they were mutually withdrawn in 2010.
Kerry "will probably speak briefly with the Venezuelan foreign minister" Elias Jaua, a US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity before arriving in Guatemala.
"We've said obviously that we would like to have a positive relationship with them," the official said, but added: "I think it will be a short meeting."
Venezuela requested the meeting, the US official said.
Maduro confirmed the meeting late yesterday.
"There will be a meeting, we could say an interesting one, between Elias Jaua ... And John Kerry," said Maduro, speaking at a public event in Caracas.
The meeting will give Jaua a chance to "directly inform the government of President (Barack) Obama of the view that the government of Venezuela has regarding how relations between our two governments should be."
Maduro said that the "differences" between the two nations can be "processed," but "there must be respect in the relations."
Kerry is making his first trip as top diplomat to Latin America for the OAS general assembly meeting, expected to focus on drugs and security.
Chavez, who lost a long battle with cancer in March, had regularly inveighed against US "imperialism" and courted US foes like Iran and Syria even while exporting 900,000 barrels of oil per day to the United States.
President Obama has not congratulated Maduro on his controversial win, as Capriles presses claims that the election was marred by irregularities.
