The National Assembly of Venezuela accused the US of pretending “appropriate” of a Venezuelan plane stranded in Argentina and conditioned the resumption of dialogue with the opposition to the return of the aircraft.
“What they are doing violates absolutely all international aeronautical regulations and violates the human rights of Venezuelans in Argentina. (…) what is happening is a common hijacking of a plane and a common kidnapping of Venezuelans and four Iranian citizens,” the president of parliament said on Tuesday.
Jorge Rodríguez was speaking during a session of parliament, in which Chavismo holds the majority, in which he stressed that the Venezuelan position is “very simple and clear.”
“As we said with the kidnapped Venezuelan diplomat, Alex Saab [detido em Cabo Verde e extraditado em outubro de 2021 para os EUA}, vamos dizer duas coisas: queremos que nos devolvam o avião e os nossos irmãos sequestrados“, frisou.
According to Jorge Rodríguez, everyone will like Venezuela”international spaces” to recover the plane and the “brothers” to return to the country.
Hours earlier, during a march in the capital, Caracas, the president of parliament referred to the retention of the aircraft as “the worst aggression” of the last 150 years towards the Venezuelan people and a country of the American continent.
“They cannot present pseudo-legal arguments, with fabrications and false notifications,” said the president of parliament.
According to Jorge Rodríguez, the president of Venezuela had “instructed exhaust diplomatic and legal channels” to deal with this matter, “but at this point it is already clear that there is no legallyand that “Argentine justice kneels before the designs” of the US.
On August 4, President Nicolás Maduro accused Argentina of trying to “steal a modern and gigantic cargo plane,” which is “legally owned by Venezuela, by order of an imperial court in the state of Florida, USA.” ”.
Maduro alluded to a Boeing 747 Dreamliner aircraft, owned by the Iranian company Mahan Air, which currently belongs to Emtrasur, a subsidiary of the Venezuelan Consortium of Aeronautical Industries and Air Services (Conviasa), which is being held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for being objective. of US sanctions.
“Venezuela raises its protest and asks for all the support of the Argentine people to recover the plane that belongs to a Venezuelan company and that they intend to steal, after being kidnapped for two months(…) as they try to steal our gold in London, the Citgo company”, he said.
At the end of July, the London Commercial Court ruled in favor of opposition leader Juan Guaidó in the case of control of Venezuelan gold deposited in the Bank of England.
In 2018, a US court authorized the confiscation of assets from Citgo Petroleum Corp, the US subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, to “honor a debt” owed to the Venezuelan government.
According to Maduro, the plane seized in Argentina was used to bring humanitarian aid to Caribbean and African countries.
“[É] the plane in which we bring medicines from China, Russia, India and who played a key role in the humanitarian support of Venezuela”, He explained.
On October 17, 2021, the Venezuelan government suspended the negotiations with the opposition, which had been taking place since August 2021 in Mexico, with the mediation of Norway.
The suspension came a day after the extradition, from Cape Verde to the United States, of Colombian businessman Alex Saab, considered a figurehead for Maduro.
The Venezuelan government named Saab as one of the representatives in the negotiations and made the resumption of dialogue with the opposition conditional on his release.
Source: Observadora
