Responding to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s latest comments on Venezuela, foreign minister Delcy Rodriguez called on him to stop interfering in Venezuela’s internal affairs, which she described as violating international law. Rodriguez was specifically referring to Kerry’s recent comments on a major news channel, where he said that international observers should be involved in Venezuela’s upcoming National Assembly elections and that all “political prisoners” in Venezuela should be freed, so that there would be no “negative impact” on U.S.-Venezuela relations. In response to Kerry, Rodriguez said that Venezuela is a free and independent country and added, “the times in which the U.S. dictated norms to Venezuela are over, thanks to the anti-imperialist actions of the Venezuelan people.” Instead, relations between Venezuela and the U.S. should be based on mutual respect and international norms, the foreign minister said. Kerry’s claims about political prisoners refers to politicians arrested not for their political views but their orchestration of a wave of violence that led to the deaths of 43 Venezuelans in 2014. Venezuela and the U.S. currently have not had ambassadors in each other’s countries since 2010, when Venezuela refused to admit the newly appointed U.S. ambassador because of negative comments he made about Venezuela’s military during his Senate confirmation hearing. The U.S. subsequently expelled Venezuela’s ambassador, Bernardo Alvarez. Ever since there have been negotiations on and off between the two countries about the exchange of ambassadors. The most recent effort was torpedoed by President Obama’s issuing of an executive order that declared Venezuela an “extraordinary and unusual threat” to U.S. national security and imposed sanctions on several Venezuelan government officials. Since then, new negotiations have taken place on the initiative of President Maduro, according to State Department advisor Thomas Shannon. Source URL |
