Venezuela’s vice president said Monday that energy agreements with Trinidad and Tobago should be canceled over what she described as “hostile” actions by the island nation.
Trinidad is now hosting one of the U.S. warships involved in a controversial campaign to destroy Venezuelan speedboats allegedly carrying drugs to the United States.
On Sunday, the USS Gravely, a destroyer fitted with guided missiles, arrived in Trinidad to conduct joint exercises with Trinidad’s navy.
Venezuelan authorities described Trinidad’s decision to host the ship as a provocation, while Trinidad’s government has said that joint exercises with the U.S. happen regularly.
“The prime minister of Trinidad has decided to join the war mongering agenda of the United States,” Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said Monday on national television.
In text messages to The Associated Press, Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said she was not concerned over the potential cancellation of the energy agreement, adding that the military training exercises were exclusively for “internal security” purposes.
Rodríguez, who is also Venezuela’s minister of hydrocarbons, said she would ask President Nicolás Maduro to withdraw from a 2015 agreement that enables neighboring countries to carry out joint natural gas exploration projects in the waters between both nations. Trinidad and Venezuela are separated by a small bay that is just 7 miles (11 kilometers) wide at its narrowest point.
Unlike other leaders in Latin America and the Caribbean who have compared strikes on alleged drug vessels to extrajudicial killings, Persad-Bissessar has supported the campaign. She has said that she’d rather see drug traffickers “blown to pieces” than have them kill the citizens of her nation.
Posted by John3262005
1 Comment
honestly this feels like a total overreaction by venezuela.. a joint military exercise doesn’t even seem like a big deal compared to losing energy agreements.