The US took custody of the Venezuelan embassy and official residences in Washington and New York after the diplomatic mission of the country’s opposition was closed following the removal of Juan Guaido as Venezuelan interim president, people familiar with the matter said.
The US Department of State took over the buildings on Monday, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is sensitive.
The mission was closed because the Venezuelan opposition was left without an executive branch after Guaido was ousted and his interim government was ended after a vote in December last year, they said.
Photo: REUTERS
Representatives for the state department and the opposition did not immediately respond to questions seeking comment.
The incident adds to the confusion over who would represent the opposition in foreign countries. For the past four years, Washington called Guaido Venezuela’s rightful leader and gave full diplomatic recognition to the interim government he led.
The administration, which existed in parallel to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s administration, was also given control of foreign assets, including management of US oil refiner Citgo Petroleum’s parent company.
However, Venezuelan opposition lawmakers late last year voted to end the interim government, effectively removing Guaido.
His ambassador to the US, Carlos Vecchio, promptly left his post after the vote. In his place, opposition lawmakers appointed a representative, Fernando Blasi, who had served as Vecchio’s commercial attache.
However, Blasi was not appointed by an executive branch and therefore was denied an extension on his diplomatic status by the US.
A group of at least a dozen people was still working out of the embassy and diplomatic residences early this week. On Wednesday, they were denied entry to the buildings, after they were last month given 30 days to sort out their migratory status, the people said.
The representatives were told the US would take custody of the embassy, a diplomatic residence and at least two other buildings in Washington, as well as at least one building in New York, the people said.
Vecchio last week turned over the keys to the buildings to the opposition-led Venezuelan National Assembly’s assets council, of which Blasi is a member.
The administration of US President Joe Biden has said it would continue to recognize the National Assembly after Guaido was removed and that it still considered Maduro “illegitimate.”
The National Assembly, which first convened in 2015, is the last democratically elected institution in Venezuela, the US has said.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS