ISTANBUL, June 9 -- The woman now running Venezuela stepped off her plane in Istanbul on Monday to a minister's welcome, and within hours Recep Tayyip Erdogan met her with the kind of public embrace Washington had hoped she would no longer be able to find. Five months after US commandos seized Nicolas Maduro from Caracas, Delcy Rodriguez is touring the capitals that did not look away.

The visit, unannounced until she had landed, carried a message pitched less at Ankara than at Washington. Removing a president, it said, did not remove the country, and Venezuela intends to keep doing business with anyone willing to. Erdogan gave Caracas the answer it came for, telling Rodriguez that Turkey would continue to stand by the Venezuelan people....