He US President Donald Trumpwarned this Saturday that the airspace over and around Venezuela should be considered completely closed, within the framework of an escalation with the leftist president. Nicolás Maduro.
“To all airlines, pilots, drug dealers and human traffickers, please consider that the airspace over and around Venezuela is completely closed,” Trump wrote on his network. Social Truth without giving more details.
Venezuela denounced the US president’s warning as a “colonialist threat” to its sovereignty.
“Venezuela denounces and condemns the colonialist threat that seeks to affect the sovereignty of its airspace, (…) a new extravagant, illegal and unjustified aggression against the people of Venezuela,” said the text published by Foreign Minister Yván Gil.
Caracas also warned that “through this action, the United States government has unilaterally suspended the flights of Venezuelan migrants that had been regularly carried out within the framework of the repatriation of Venezuelans.”
Some 75 flights have been carried out this year, with at least 13,956 Venezuelans deported from the United States.
Meanwhile, the Venezuelan armed forces carried out coastal exercises this Saturday aimed at “detecting any enemy action” towards the territory, said one of the commanders in videos published by the state channel VTV, which showed images of the mobilization of armed soldiers, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft batteries.
Since early September, the Trump government has increased pressure on Venezuela, with a significant military deployment in the Caribbean that includes the largest aircraft carrier in the world.
The American president affirms that his objective is to stop drug trafficking from the South American country, but Caracas assures that he is seeking a change of regime.
US forces have killed at least 83 people in their more than 20 attacks against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific
Washington has not provided any evidence that these vessels were used to transport drugs or represented a threat to the United States.
“Overland”
To add to the pressure, Trump warned earlier this week that efforts to curb Venezuelan drug trafficking “overland” would begin “very soon.”
In recent days, there has been constant activity by US fighter jets a few dozen kilometers off the Venezuelan coast, according to aircraft tracking websites.
The Dominican Republic, Venezuela’s neighbor, authorized the United States this week to use airport facilities as part of its deployment, while Trinidad and Tobago, also located a few kilometers away, recently hosted exercises by the United States Marine Corps.
Suspension of flights
U.S. aviation authorities last week urged civil aircraft operating in Venezuelan airspace to “act with caution” due to the “worsening security situation and intensified military activity in or around Venezuela.”
The Trump warning resulted in the suspension of flights to and from Venezuela of six airlines that represent a large part of the traffic in South America.
The measure infuriated Caracas.
The Venezuelan aeronautical authority revoked the permits to operate in the country of the Spanish Iberia, the Portuguese TAP, the Colombian Avianca, the Colombian subsidiary of the Chilean-Brazilian Latam, the Brazilian GOL and the Turkish Turkish.
He Maduro government accuses the airlines of “joining the actions of state terrorism promoted by the United States government, unilaterally suspending their commercial air operations.”
In it Maiquetia Airportthe main airport in Venezuela, AFP journalists confirmed the activity of national and international planes on the runway this Saturday.
The diary The New York Times reported on Friday that Trump and Maduro held a telephone conversation last week in which they discussed a possible meeting in the United States.
News of the call between Trump and Maduro came a day after the US president stated that efforts to stop Venezuelan drug trafficking over land were imminent, further raising tensions with Caracas.
