Venezuela warns Trinidad against fuelling tensions

The Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of is­su­ing an “an­gry and un­jus­ti­fied” re­sponse to its con­cerns about so called "ter­ror­ists" orig­i­nat­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In an of­fi­cial com­mu­nique is­sued a short while ago, the Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­ac­tion raised “se­ri­ous sus­pi­cions of com­plic­i­ty” in the al­leged in­cur­sion and could dam­age co­op­er­a­tion be­tween both coun­tries.

“The Prime Min­is­ter’s vir­u­lent and high-hand­ed at­ti­tude rais­es se­ri­ous sus­pi­cions of com­plic­i­ty... and un­der­mines the good co­op­er­a­tive re­la­tions be­tween our coun­tries in key ar­eas,” the state­ment said.

Venezuela said Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro had made a “le­git­i­mate” com­plaint, adding that not on­ly were sev­er­al Trinida­di­an na­tion­als de­tained but that they had "con­fessed" to their plans.

The Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment said its case is backed by “com­pelling ev­i­dence” from its au­thor­i­ties.

It warned against what it de­scribed as “geopo­lit­i­cal games” and urged Trinidad and To­ba­go’s au­thor­i­ties to re­solve any le­git­i­mate con­cerns through diplo­mat­ic chan­nels.

“Any le­git­i­mate con­cern should be ad­dressed through diplo­mat­ic chan­nels—not through threats or un­found­ed state­ments that on­ly fu­el ar­ti­fi­cial ten­sions,” the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment added.

———This is a de­vel­op­ing sto­ry———