Venezuela Accuses Peru of Fostering Interventionist Regional Climate
Venezuela's Foreign Ministry accused its Peruvian counterpart of “obeying the interventionist rulebook of Washington to justify intervention in Venezuela, in concert with opposition groups”.
Caracas, November 1, 2016 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez has accused the Peruvian government of whipping up pro-interventionist sentiment in the region after its foreign ministry released an official statement condemning “an alteration” of Venezuela’s democratic order.
The communiqué was released as Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski made his address at the fifteenth Ibero-American Summit in Cartagena last Saturday, in which he also alleged that Venezuela was suffering from a “tremendous economic crisis, a…crisis of political rights and I would also say of human rights”.
Kuczynski had already ruffled feathers in Venezuela earlier in the week after telling press that he would use the regional conference as an opportunity to seek consensus among Latin American leaders for invoking the Organization of American States’ democratic charter against Venezuela.
In an official response to the statements last Sunday, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry accused its Peruvian counterpart of “obeying the interventionist rulebook of Washington to justify intervention in Venezuela, in concert with opposition groups”.
The communique also stated that Rodriguez had demanded respect from Kuczynski during the summit’s closed door lunch, while reminding “the Peruvian government that mutual respect, sovereign equality amongst states and non-intervention in the internal matters of another state… are some of the cardinal principles of international law”.
Venezuela’s national government initiated a much anticipated dialogue with the opposition on Sunday following months of tense political deadlock.
The opposition accuses the national government of blocking efforts to organise a recall referendum against current President Nicolas Maduro, whose popularity has suffered over the past two years due to an acute economic crisis. Likewise, the government charges its political rivals with trying to unseat the president through fraudulent and violent methods before his democratically-elected term is up.
Despite Kuczynski’s attempt to steer the conference towards a discussion of Venezuela’s political and economic situation, the Cartagena summit did not release any official statement on the matter.