Washington,
Feb 25. US State Secretary Mike Pompeo on Sunday said that the US would impose
more sanctions against Venezuela.
“There’ll
be a meeting of the Lima Group on Monday, where further action will be
contemplated. There are more sanctions to be had,” Xinhua news agency
quoted Pompeo as saying in an interview with CNN.
Vice
President Mike Pence would travel to Colombia on Feb 25 to attend a Lima Group
meeting on behalf of President Donald Trump, the White House had said last
week.
Lima
Group to focus on Venezuela’s situation
The Lima
Group, comprising 13 Latin American countries and Canada, is a multilateral
body established in August 2017 to focus on Venezuela’s situation.
Pompeo also
noted that the United States would provide more “humanitarian
assistance” to Venezuela, saying the aid was requested by the opposition
leader Juan Guaido.
Denying the
existence of a humanitarian crisis, the Venezuelan government refused to let
the aid cross the border and called the aid operation a US-orchestrated show
leading to an eventual invasion.
On Friday
night, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez announced the closure of three
bridges connecting the country with Colombia. Venezuelan President Nicolas
Maduro announced on Saturday the severance of his country’s diplomatic and
political relations with Colombia, following the latter’s support for
Venezuela’s opposition and military defectors.
“I
think we’ll find other ways to make sure that food gets to the people who need
it,” Pompeo said in the interview.
Maduro accuses
US of orchestrating a coup
According to a statement issued by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the US has airlifted approximately 191 metric tons of relief supplies to the Colombian border city of Cucuta since Feb 4.
At the same
time, the US began pre-positioning 178 metric tons of locally-procured supplies
in Boa Vista, near Brazil’s border with Venezuela, the State Department said
Friday.
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself “interim president” on Jan. 23 and was immediately recognized by Washington.
In response,
Maduro announced he was severing diplomatic and political ties with the US,
ordering all US diplomatic and consular personnel to leave Venezuela.
Maduro has accused Washington of orchestrating a coup d’etat in order to install a puppet regime in Venezuela.
