Nicolás Maduro authorized this Monday the “immediate” suspension of the gas agreements with Trinidad and Tobago, which he denounced as a “threat” by the Trinidadian Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, to turn the island country “into the aircraft carrier” of the United States against South America.
“Everything is suspended,” he said after ensuring that he has approved a proposal from the Ministry of Hydrocarbons – headed by the vice president, Delcy Rodríguez – and the directive of the state-run PDVSA to suspend the agreements, after the arrival in Trinidad and Tobago of a US Navy destroyer to carry out military exercises, in the midst of Washington’s deployment in the Caribbean Sea.
The Chavista leader explained that this is a “precautionary measure of immediate suspension,” and reported that he has requested recommendations from the Council of State, the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) and the National Assembly (AN, Parliament) to “take a structural measure very soon in this matter,” of which he did not give details.
Maduro expressed that the cooperation with Trinidad and Tobago was signed “with great enthusiasm years ago for the development of shared gas blocks” and that his government had maintained it “in a Bolivarian show of brotherhood and solidarity” with the island country, which, he said, “used up the entire gas reserve, was left without gas.”
“But given the prime minister’s threat to turn Trinidad and Tobago into the aircraft carrier of the US empire against Venezuela, against South America, there is only one alternative,” said Maduro, who also accused Persad-Bissessar of being a “promoter of war.”
Hours earlier, the executive vice president and head of Hydrocarbons had reported the decision to propose to the president “the immediate denunciation of the energy cooperation framework agreement between Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela, which was signed in 2015 with a validity of 10 years, automatically renewed in February of this year for five more years.”
Rodríguez indicated that the agreement contemplates the treatment of joint gas fields for the development of infrastructure, as well as the execution of hydrocarbon projects.
This Monday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Caribbean island has denied that the military exercises carried out these days by the US Navy in its territory against drug trafficking in the Caribbean Sea are also intended to provoke hostilities against Venezuela.
In the same note, the ministry insisted that the true purpose of the US military presence in its territory is to support the fight against transnational crime, accentuate humanitarian collaboration and security cooperation in the area.
On Sunday, the Maduro Government denounced a “military provocation” by Trinidad and Tobago “in coordination with” the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to “install a war in the Caribbean.”
Caracas assures that the US deployment aims to promote a “regime change” in Venezuela.
