Venezuela announced it had cut diplomatic ties with multiple countries due to their protestations over the conduct of the country’s presidential election.
Venezuela’s foreign ministry declared in a press release they were suspending diplomatic relations with “countries like Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay” for threatening the country’s “national sovereignty,” Times Now News reported. The ministry demanded these named states immediately remove “their representatives from Venezuelan territory.” (RELATED: Turkey Halts All Trade With Israel Over Gaza Humanitarian Crisis)
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela Yvan Gil accused this grouping of states of being “a group of right-wing governments, subordinate to Washington and openly committed to the most sordid ideological postulates of international fascism” in a statement on Twitter in Spanish. The minister expressly cited their question over the results and conduct of Venezuela’s presidential election as the reason.
#Comunicado 📢 Venezuela expresa su más firme rechazo ante las injerencistas acciones y declaraciones de un grupo de gobiernos de derecha, subordinados a Washington y comprometidos abiertamente con los más sórdidos postulados ideológicos del fascismo internacional, tratando… pic.twitter.com/l0dAaNSnEA
— Yvan Gil (@yvangil) July 29, 2024
The election dispute in Venezuela stems from accusations of election fraud and rigging by the incumbent President Nicolás Maduro. Both presidential candidates declared victory with the opposition citing an independent poll claiming their candidate received 70 percent of the vote. Maduro’s declaration is based on the official results on the election that puts him at winning 51 percent of the vote. Argentina President Javier Milei and the United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed concerns that the official results do not reflect the genuine will of the voter.
Many other Latin American states followed suit in expressing skepticism over the election, a statement by Costa Rica’s Foreign Ministry in Spanish noted. Costa Rica joined other states in calling for “an urgent meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) to issue a resolution that safeguards the popular will, within the framework of the Democratic Charter and the fundamental principles of democracy in our region,” the press release read.
“Venezuela denounces and alerts the world about an operation of intervention against the electoral process, our right to self-determination and the sovereignty of our Homeland, by a group of foreign governments and powers,” Gil wrote in English on Twitter.
#Communiqué 📢 Venezuela denounces and alerts the world about an operation of intervention against the electoral process, our right to self-determination and the sovereignty of our Homeland, by a group of foreign governments and powers. pic.twitter.com/pXlTKsTIQ3
— Yvan Gil (@yvangil) July 29, 2024
Dr. Javier González-Olaechea Franco, Peruvian foreign minister, acknowledged Venezuela’s suspension of ties calling it “serious and arbitrary decisions” in a press release in Spanish. The minister also ordered the withdrawal of Venezuelan diplomats within 72 hours in Peru in response.
