Venezuela tells the Spanish ambassador that it will not accept “any interventionist action”

Eduardo González The Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yván Gil, has summoned the Spanish ambassador in Caracas, Ramón Santos, to express the “strong position of the Venezuelan Government” and warn him that the Government of Nicolás Maduro will not accept “any interventionist action on the part of the Government of Spain”. “We have summoned the Spanish Ambassador, Ramón Santos, to express the Venezuelan Government’s strong position,” Gil wrote via Telegram. “We will not allow any interventionist action by the Spanish Government in matters that are the exclusive responsibility of Venezuelans,” he continued. “The Venezuelan Government will adopt the necessary measures, within the framework of international law and Bolivarian Diplomacy of Peace, to protect its sovereignty,” he added. The Venezuelan foreign minister was accompanied by the vice minister for Europe and former Venezuelan ambassador to Spain, Coromoto Godoy, according to the Venezuelan government. On Thursday afternoon, Yván Gil announced his decision to call his ambassador in Madrid, Gladys Gutiérrez, for consultations and to summon the Spanish ambassador in Caracas, Ramón Santos, in response to what he describes as “insolent, interventionist and rude” statements by the Spanish Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, who referred to the Government of Nicolás Maduro as a “dictatorship.” In his first statements on this incident, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, assured Radio Nacional de España yesterday that “summoning an ambassador, I have done it on several occasions, and calling for consultations are sovereign decisions of each State and therefore there is nothing to comment on.” He also avoided using the word “dictatorship” to refer to the Venezuelan regime because he is not “a professor of constitutional law or a political scientist,” but rather a Minister of Foreign Affairs, and a Minister of Foreign Affairs is “the last person” to use “qualifiers” to refer to “a brother country.” On the other hand, the Venezuelan ambassador in Madrid has already left Spain after the call for consultations by Yván Gil, according to informed sources told the Europa Press agency. On Wednesday, the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, urged the Legislative Chamber to approve the breaking of diplomatic relations with Spain, after the Congress of Deputies asked the Spanish Executive to recognize the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia as the winner of the elections of July 28. Rodríguez compared this initiative with a “declaration of war” by Spain against Venezuela. The Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly has been holding a permanent session since Friday to address the possible breaking of diplomatic relations with Spain. The president of the Committee, Timoteo Zambrano, has explained to the media that this body will prepare a proposal based on Rodríguez's call and that he hopes that "in the next few days" the Plenary of the Assembly can study the proposal. He also announced that the appearance of the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Yván Gil, of "a representative of the Spanish community in Venezuela" and of "diplomatic commissioners in consular and commercial matters of Spain" will be requested, according to the National Assembly in a press release. For his part, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, did not want to comment, during a press conference from the European Parliament office in Spain, on whether there is a dictatorship in Venezuela, although he did add that “it is evident that these elections have shown that the democratic quality of Venezuela, which we already knew about before, has not improved.” He also confirmed his intention to meet opposition member Edmundo González, with whom he maintains “permanent contact,” and denounced that the Maduro regime is “embarked on a repressive dynamic that worries us all” and from which “we can only get out through international pressure.” The political debate in Spain and investments Meanwhile, the deputy secretary of Institutional Action of the PP, the MEP Esteban González Pons, yesterday applauded the statements of Margarita Robles in which she described the Venezuelan regime as a “dictatorship”. “For the first time someone from Pedro Sánchez’s Government has told the truth. It had to be Margarita Robles. Because Pedro Sánchez does not know, does not want to or is not free (to do so). Venezuela is a dictatorship. Margarita Robles has said it and it is the pure truth”, he declared through a video broadcast to the media. The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, yesterday accused Pedro Sánchez of “ignoring the mandate of Congress” to recognise Edmundo González as president of Venezuela. “I deeply regret that Spain does not defend democracy in Venezuela and I deeply regret that our historical, cultural and brotherly relations that we have maintained with the Hispanic American nations are broken by ideological, political or economic interests of the Spanish socialist Government”, he declared. “Spain is giving a terrible example to the international community,” he lamented. Meanwhile, two former Prime Ministers, Mariano Rajoy (PP) and Felipe González (PSOE) met yesterday with the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, who has been in Spain since last Sunday, at his own request, to request political asylum. Regarding the possible break in relations by Venezuela, the Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo, wanted to send a message of reassurance to companies with investments in Venezuela, to whom he assured that the Spanish Government “will defend their interests if this were necessary.” Currently, Spain is the third largest investment partner in Venezuela, after the USA and China, although investments have been decreasing in the last five years. The largest volume of imports from Venezuela corresponds to oil. Nearly sixty Spanish multinationals operate in this country in sectors such as energy, telecommunications or banking. For example, Telefónica employs 1,700 workers and has a market share of 53%. BBVA and Mapfre are present in the insurance sector and the airline Iberia transports 2,500 passengers between the two countries every week.

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