Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro on Friday called for dialogue with Washington, hours after US President Donald Trump threatened to shoot down Venezuelan military jets if they pose a danger to US forces.
Tensions between the two countries soared over the past few days after the Pentagon accused Venezuela of buzzing its ships in the Caribbean following a deadly US strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat.
“None of the differences we have and have had can lead to a military conflict,” Maduro said in a message broadcast on all of Venezuela’s radio and television networks.
Photo: Venezuelan Presidency via AFP
“Venezuela has always been willing to talk, to engage in dialogue, but we demand respect,” he added.
As tensions mount, Washington is deploying F-35 warplanes to Puerto Rico as part of Trump’s war on drug cartels.
The 10 aircraft would join US warships already present in the southern Caribbean as Trump steps up pressure on Maduro, whom the US accuses of leading a drug cartel.
Maduro denied that in his evening speech.
“Those intelligence reports they give him [Trump] are not true,” Maduro said. “Venezuela today is a country free from coca leaf production, cocaine, and is a country that fights against drug trafficking.”
Asked earlier on Friday what steps he would take if there were further incidents of Venezuelan jets buzzing US ships, Trump said: “If they do put us in a dangerous position, they’ll be shot down.”
US forces on Tuesday blew up an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean that Trump said belonged to Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal organization he tied to Maduro, killing 11 people.
The high-tech F-35 jets are being deployed to an airfield in Puerto Rico, a US Caribbean island territory of more than 3 million people, US sources familiar with the matter told Agence France-Presse on condition of anonymity.
Maduro — a leftist firebrand whose last election last year was seen by Washington as illegitimate — has denounced the US buildup as “the greatest threat our continent has seen in the last 100 years.”
Declaring his country prepared for “armed struggle in defense of the national territory,” he has mobilized Venezuela’s military, which numbers about 340,000, and reservists, which he claims exceed 8 million.
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