US imposes ban on arms sales to Venezuala
The US is imposing a ban on arms sales to Venezuela because of what it claims is a lack of support by President Hugo Chavez’s leftist government for counterterrorism efforts, the US state department said tonight.
The US action signalled a further deterioration in US relations with Venezuela, the world fifth largest supplier of oil to US markets. Chavez said he did not plan retaliatory action.
State department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States was concerned about Venezuela’s close relations with Iran and Cuba, both of which are on the department’s list of state sponsors of terror.
“If you have a reasonable or rational expectation that somehow information that you share with them might make its way to just the groups that you’re trying to combat, that’s certainly negative,” McCormack said.
He said the US is also concerned about Venezuela’s ties with two leftist guerrilla groups in Colombia: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the National Liberation Army, or ELN. Both have been designed foreign terrorist organisations by the United States.
Chavez, on a visit to London, dismissed the US move as irrelevant. “This doesn’t matter to us at all,” he said.
He pledged efforts to find a solution to the problem. Labelling the US as an “irrational empire,” Chavez said it has a “great capacity to do harm to the countries of the world.”
Chavez previously has called President George Bush a “terrorist” and accused the US of plotting to overthrow him.
The arms sale ban affects US sales and licensing for the export of defence articles and services to Venezuela, including the transfer of defence items, said Darla Jordan, a state department spokeswoman.
The sanctions are not expected to have a significant on defence-related US business dealings with Venezuela. There has been concern expressed in the past about what it contends in an arms buildup by Venezuela, including the purchase of 100,000 rifles from Russia.
The department said today it has noted with concern Venezuela’s “multi-billion dollars arms acquisition programme.”
Thomas Shannon, who heads the State Department’s Latin America bureau, said the administration had concluded that it could not tell the Congress that Venezuela was cooperating in counter-terrorism activities in any meaningful way.
“This was a step we took with great reluctance,” Shannon said in response to a question during an appearance at George Washington University.
Antoine Halff, an oil analyst at Fimat USA in New York, said it was too soon to determine how the oil market would react, though he anticipated a possible short-term uptick in oil prices. He added that the US has ample supplies right now and that any potential retaliatory action by Venezuela would be tempered by the fact that global demand appears to be weakening.
