UN urges restraint over Venezuela escalation

The Unit­ed Na­tions has urged re­straint and de-es­ca­la­tion amid ris­ing ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela, fol­low­ing Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s an­nounce­ment of a block­ade of a Venezue­lan oil tanker.

Asked about the le­gal­i­ty of the move, Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesper­son for the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, said the fo­cus re­mained on pre­vent­ing fur­ther es­ca­la­tion:

“The Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al calls for re­straint and for the im­me­di­ate de-es­ca­la­tion of the sit­u­a­tion. He calls on all stake­hold­ers to ho­n­our their oblig­a­tions un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law, in­clud­ing the UN Char­ter and any oth­er ap­plic­a­ble le­gal frame­work to safe­guard peace in the re­gion.”

Pressed on whether the block­ade vi­o­lates in­ter­na­tion­al law, Haq said the UN was re­view­ing the ap­plic­a­ble le­gal frame­works.

“Cer­tain­ly, par­ties have to abide by the UN Char­ter,” he stat­ed, “and you can read the Char­ter for your­self and see what that en­tails.”

Haq said the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al was “fol­low­ing the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion very close­ly” and was “en­gag­ing with rel­e­vant par­ties.”

Af­ter Mex­i­co’s Pres­i­dent Clau­dia Shein­baum urged the UN to pre­vent blood­shed, and Venezuela an­nounced plans to bring the is­sue be­fore the UN, Haq said the mat­ter would like­ly fall to mem­bers of the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil to con­sid­er.

The UN al­so said it had no in­for­ma­tion to sup­port US claims that Venezuela had stolen Amer­i­can oil or as­sets and de­clined to com­ment on Wash­ing­ton’s des­ig­na­tion of the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment as a for­eign ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tion, warn­ing against steps that could fur­ther es­ca­late ten­sions.

Re­spond­ing to de­tailed ques­tions on the le­gal­i­ty of a block­ade un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law, Haq added:

“Right now, what we’re try­ing to do is make sure that all par­ties, in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States, abide by the Char­ter, in­clud­ing the rel­e­vant pas­sages that you’ve cit­ed.”