May 15, 2006 1:30 pm US/Central
U.S. Imposes Arms Sales Ban On Venezuela
WASHINGTON (AP) ―
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President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez (File).
AP
The United States 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 State Department said Monday.
For nearly a year, there has been a nearly total lack of cooperation with anti-terrorism, Darla Jordan, a State Department spokeswoman, said.
As a result, U.S. sales and licensing for the export of defense articles and services to Venezuela, including the transfer of defense items, will not be permitted, she said.
Venezuela is a major supplier of oil to the United States but relations between Chavez and the Bush administration have sharply deteriorated. Chavez has called Bush a "terrorist," and denounced the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Just last month, the State Department used its annual report on international terrorism to accuse Chavez of having an "ideological affinity" with two leftist guerrilla groups operating in neighboring Colombia, the FARC and the National Liberation Army. The United States considers both to be terrorist organizations.
Earlier Monday, Chavez rejected U.S. claims that Iran's nuclear program is aimed at producing a nuclear bomb. "I don't believe that the United States or anyone else has the right ... to prohibit that a country has nuclear energy," he said at a news conference in London.
Chavez, an ally of Cuba's Fidel Castro, has repeatedly accused the United States of trying to overthrow him to seize his country's vast oil reserves. U.S. officials have denied that and accused him being a threat to democracies in the region.
Venezuela delivered millions of gallons of discount-priced heating oil to some low-income Americans in the Northeast this past winter, distributing it through Citgo Petroleum Corp., the U.S.-based subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company. Some critics saw the move as an effort to embarrass Bush.
In a speech Saturday to a Vienna meeting of activists and members of social movements and non-governmental groups, Chavez said the "final hours of the North American empire have arrived."
"So now we have to say to the empire: 'We're not afraid of you. You're a paper tiger," he added.
(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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