Venezuela tells U.S. to cut 80 diplomats

PanARMENIAN.Net - President Nicolás Maduro, accusing the Obama administration of plotting against him, on Monday, March 2, told the U.S. it has two weeks to cut its embassy staff from about 100 to 17, leaving just a barebones team, the Wall Street Journal reports.

In a televised statement, Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez said the U.S. needed to inform her government who would remain in the American compound, which overlooks the capital from a high perch in the city’s south. “We have given a timeframe of 15 days to present a plan,” Rodríguez said shortly after a meeting with the top American envoy here, Lee McLenny, the chargé d’affaires.

The Venezuelan government’s hardening position toward Washington comes as Maduro’s closest ally, Cuba, is improving relations with the U.S. After a half century of icy relations, American and Cuban diplomats are renewing diplomatic ties and planning for the opening of embassies in Havana and Washington.

In addition, the Maduro administration is planning to require that U.S. citizens apply for travel visas before going to Venezuela, charging them $160, the sum Venezuelans now pay for the visa they need to travel to the U.S. The government here hasn’t disclosed other details about the new measures. The U.S. has not had an ambassador here since 2010, when the president at the time, Hugo Chávez , refused to accept a new American envoy.

Maduro, according to the Journal, says the restrictions will help “regulate imperialist aggression” but has offered no proof of American machinations.

The administration of President Barack Obama says Maduro makes up claims about U.S. plans to overthrow him to divert attention from a tanking economy, which the International Monetary Fund says will contract by 7% this year.

“There has been a lot of anti-American rhetoric again coming out of the Venezuelan government, with a lot of baseless allegations,” said Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman.