The President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, has ordered a “comprehensive review” of all relations with Spain in response to the visit of that country’s foreign minister, Arancha Gonzalez Laya, to the Colombian city of Cucuta to verify the situation in which thousands live. Venezuelan immigrants. Maduro accused the Spanish chancellor of “declaring in favor of Colombia’s xenophobic policy against Venezuela” and of being more concerned with the situation of Venezuelans who left the country than “searching for refugees and people fleeing Africa. And dying in the Mediterranean.”
Last week, the Venezuelan president declared the European Union’s ambassador, Isabel Briollhant Pedrosa, persona non grata.And give him 72 hours to leave the country. Then Brussels did the same with the diplomat Claudia Salerno, although she did not order her expulsion from the Belgian territories because she was also the simultaneous Venezuelan representative with other neighboring countries.
“We will undertake a comprehensive review of the full relationship with Spain at all levels, with enough aggressions,” said Maduro. During his participation in the Bicentennial Conference of Peoples. “We warned the Spanish government at the right time, and our Foreign Minister (Jorge Ariza) warned him at the right time. We will respond with force to any aggression that comes, whether in words, at work, diplomatic or political.“The Venezuelan president.
According to official data, there are at least 1,748,000 Venezuelans in Colombia, making this nation the main destination for the more than five million people who have left the oil sector. A portion of these immigrants settled in Ccuta, a city on the border of Tachira state in western Venezuela, where thousands of people arrive every day to reside and use it as a bridge before continuing their migration through the region or simply storing food and other essential items. Products.
In that city, Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laia and her Colombian counterpart Claudia Bloom visited a UNICEF hospital and shelter that takes care of Venezuelan migrants. After these activities, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs announced, from the Cucuta land border crossing, which connects Colombia and Venezuela, that she was there to try to “give an answer” to the migrants.
“I am not here to criticize Venezuela and I am not here to teach Venezuela lessons.”, He said Gonzales Laia After he considered that the expulsion of the European Union’s ambassador to Caracas, Isabel Prielante, who announced last Wednesday, does not help the necessity of dialogue to resolve the Venezuelan crisis. “I am here to try with the international community to provide an answer to the Venezuelan citizens who decided to leave their country and come to Colombia in search of a better life,” he said.
But Maduro considered the passage of the Spanish foreign minister through Cucuta to be “hypocrisy” and supports the alleged “xenophobic policy” of the government of Colombian President Ivan Duque against Venezuelan immigrants. “Today the Spanish Foreign Minister hypocrisically heading to the border in C كوكcuta to declare his support for the xenophobic policy of the Colombian government against Venezuelans (…) What is the Spanish foreign minister doing on the Colombian border with Venezuela instead of going to the Mediterranean to search for Refugees and people fleeing Africa? ”Said the Socialist president.
This event adds to The tension between these two countries already suffers Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez fled the country at the end of last October and settled in Spain. The Venezuelan government accused the then Spanish ambassador in Caracas, Jess Silva – who had lived in Lopez’s residence as a guest for nearly 18 months – of helping the opponent escape, who was sentenced to nearly 14 years in prison for summoning some protests that led to more than 40 deaths in a year. 2014.
Last Wednesday, Venezuela delivered a protest note to the head of the Spanish diplomatic missions, Juan Fernández-Trigo; France, Roman Nadal; Germany, Daniel Kriner, and the Netherlands, Robert Schudboom. According to Venezuela’s Foreign Minister, Jorge Ariza, the Caribbean state issued protest notes stating that “it was these four governments that acted with the most malicious intent to promote new attacks,” referring to the new European Union sanctions against 19 Venezuelans, including representatives and state officials.
