President Donald Trump assured that he spoke “very recently” with his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, but that the conversation was not fruitful in reducing pressure from Washington, which, according to the US president, included Wednesday’s attack on a dock allegedly used by drug traffickers.
“I spoke to him. Very recently. But not much came of it,” Trump told the media today when asked if he recently spoke by phone with the Venezuelan president.
Trump’s statements, which occurred at the beginning of his meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at his Florida residence, come hours after the media echoed some of the president’s statements last Friday, when he assured that the US attacked a “large facility” used for the transportation of drugs.
Trump did not specify then whether or not that target was in Venezuelan territory and he did not do so today either.
“It was along the coastline,” Trump limited himself to saying about the operation, which occurred last Wednesday and in which he assured that “there was a big explosion in the dock area where the boats are loaded with drugs.”
“They load the boats with drugs. So we attack all the boats, and now we attack the area. It is the area of operations, that is where they operate and that area no longer exists,” he added.
Although neither the Pentagon nor any instance of the US Federal Government nor Caracas have confirmed this attack, it could be the first US attack on Venezuelan territory.
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For several weeks, Trump has been warning that, within the framework of his pressure campaign against the Maduro Administration — which, according to Washington, has included the destruction of thirty boats accused of transporting drugs and the death of more than a hundred of their occupants —, the US would begin to attack land targets linked to drug trafficking.
The Trump Government assures that Maduro and the leaders of his Executive and the Venezuelan Armed Forces lead the so-called Cartel of the Suns, an organization that Washington has declared a terrorist group, a claim that Caracas denies.
With information from EFE
