Iran condemns US baseless accusations against Venezuelan President

Tehran (IP) - Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman condemned the US baseless accusations against the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Iran Press/Iran news: The US Justice Department announced yesterday that a court in New York has made charges against the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro along with the country’s former Speaker of the Constituent Assembly, former Army Intelligence Chief and two former military commanders with drug trafficking.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi said on Friday 27 March that no rule in the international law allows the US to abuse its judicial procedures to interfere in other countries' internal affairs and prepare grounds for coup, overthrow, or aggression.

“Worse still, is that it determines a reward to arrest the head of a foreign state and defame him in such a rotten and old fashioned way,” he added.

Mousavi said silence, submission, and indifference to the US acts is a sort of conformity to its illegal behaviors, and called on the members of the international community to defend multilateralism and reject the US unilateralism.

The Trump administration is ramping up its pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by releasing a criminal indictment charging him with drug trafficking and by posting a $15 million reward for his capture.

The indictment, returned by a grand jury in New York, accuses Maduro of conspiring with a hard-line faction of the Colombian rebel group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia to ship vast quantities of cocaine to the United States.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said on Thursday that the decision by the administration of US President Donald Trump to offer rewards for the capture of Maduro and other high-ranking officials accused of drug trafficking show "desperation" of the "Washington elite" and US administration's "obsession" with Venezuela.

Trump was "once more attacking the Venezuelan people and its democratic institutions, using a new form of coup d'etat based on miserable, vulgar and unfounded accusations," Arreaza added.

The indictment marks a serious new phase against Maduro by Washington at a time when some US officials have privately said Trump is increasingly frustrated with the results of his Venezuela policy.

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