Panama denounced that Venezuelan authorities blocked the airspace so that former presidents Mireya Moscoso (Panama), Tuto Quiroga (Bolivia) and Miguel Ángel (Costa Rica), who were coming to observe the elections, could not fly. They also prohibited a Venezuela-Panama flight from taking off.
The Panamanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the “representative of the Venezuelan Diplomatic Mission” after a plane carrying several former presidents who were going to Caracas to participate as electoral observers in the elections on Sunday, July 28, was unable to take off.
“The Foreign Ministry has summoned the representative of the Diplomatic Mission of Venezuela in Panama to the Bolívar Palace,” said the Panamanian foreign minister, Javier Martínez-Acha, on his X account, citing the Panamanian president’s publication where he reported that the plane was not allowed to leave.
Then, in a new publication and after the former presidents had already left the plane, Martínez-Acha reported that, through the Minister of Transport of Venezuela, Ramón Celestino Velásquez, they were informed that from that moment on there will be “no impediment” to the flights. “The Panamanian Foreign Ministry has been informed that the Minister of Transport of Venezuela assures that from this moment on there will be no impediment to Copa flights in both directions. We are analyzing this incident very carefully,” wrote the Panamanian Minister of Foreign Affairs in X.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino had previously reported that a Copa Airlines plane carrying former Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso and other former presidents bound for Venezuela was not “allowed to take off from Tocumen while they remain on board, due to the blockade of Venezuelan airspace. Likewise, another Copa flight to Panama from Caracas has not been allowed to take off.”
*Read also: They were taken off the plane: Maduro did not allow former presidents to come for the elections
These former presidents are part of the Freedom and Democracy Group, which is made up, in addition to Moscoso, of the Dominican president, Luis Abinader, and the former presidents of the Spanish Government José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy, as well as the former presidents Mario Abdo Benítez, from Paraguay; Jeanine Áñez and Jorge Quiroga, from Bolivia; Felipe Calderón and Vicente Fox, from Mexico, and Iván Duque and Andrés Pastrana, from Colombia.
Also taking part in this initiative are former presidents Osvaldo Hurtado, Jamil Mahuad and Guillermo Lasso of Ecuador; Rafael Calderón and Miguel Ángel Rodríguez of Costa Rica; and Mauricio Macri of Argentina; in addition to Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó and former Puerto Rican governor Luis Fortuño. Caracas’ decision to prevent some of them from leaving Panama comes after the Freedom and Democracy Group stated in a statement on Wednesday that any attempt at fraud in Venezuela’s presidential elections must be sanctioned by the international community.
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