CARACAS (AFP)

The new head of the US diplomatic mission to Venezuela arrived in the country on Saturday and was welcomed by the South American country's foreign minister, as relations gradually warm after the ouster of Nicolas Maduro in a US military raid.

"I just arrived in Venezuela. My team and I are ready to work," Laura Dogu said in a post in Spanish on the US Embassy of Venezuela's X account, accompanied by photos of her disembarking a plane.

Dogu, a former ambassador to Nicaragua and Honduras, was named last week as US charge d'affaires in Venezuela. A charge d'affaires is the head of a diplomatic mission in the absence of a full ambassador.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil received Dogu after her arrival.

Their meeting was part of an effort by Caracas to "define a roadmap on questions of bilateral interest" and address existing differences via diplomacy, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The United States has already sent a mission to assess the embassy in Caracas, which has been largely unoccupied for the past six years.