CARACAS: A Venezuelan aircraft carrying President Nicolas Maduro was denied travel through US airspace, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said, denouncing the act as “an act of aggression.”
The aircraft carrying Maduro was to depart for China as the President was due to arrive in Beijing this weekend for bilateral talks with the Chinese government.
However, Maduro’s flight was forced to find an alternate flight path instead of flying over Puerto Rico’s airspace, Jaua said.
“We have received the information from American officials that we have been denied travel over its airspace,” Jaua said while speaking to newsmen during an official meeting with his South African counterpart.
“We denounce this as yet another aggression on the part of North American imperialism against the government of the Bolivarian Republic,” Jaua said. “No one can deny airspace to a plane carrying a president on an international state visit.”
