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.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image