Venezuela Expels El Salvador Diplomats in Tit-for Tat
CARACAS (Dispatches) -- Venezuela has ordered El Salvador's diplomats to leave the country in 48 hours in retaliation against San Salvador for expelling its officials a day earlier.
On Saturday, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele announced via Twitter that Venezuela's diplomats had two days to leave the country. Bukele said that it would accept the diplomatic mission of opposition leader Juan Guaido.
Guaido appointed himself interim president of Venezuela earlier this year, plunging the country into a political crisis. Since then, mostly Western powers, led by the United States, continue to impose sanctions and tighten other diplomatic vices on Venezuela to force democratically-elected President Nicolas Maduro to step down.
On Sunday, the government announced in a statement that it would be expelling El Salvador's representatives from the country for "breathing oxygen into the failing U.S. strategy of intervention and economic blockade against the people of Venezuela."
He accused Bukele of playing the "sad role of a pawn" in U.S. foreign policy.
Bukele, who earlier this summer assumed the office of the president, responded Sunday, saying that Maduro had expelled the diplomats placed in Venezuela by his predecessor, Salvador Sanchez Ceren.
"I forgot to mention that our government had not appointed a single official in our embassy in Venezuela," he said in a tweet. "So, the Maduro regime has just expelled officials appointed 100 percent by the government of Sanchez Ceren, whom they called their friends."
Following Bukele's move on Saturday, U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Embajador Ronald Johnson congratulated him for being "on the right side of history."
The move came days after the United States and El Salvador reached a deal to extend work permits for an estimated 250,000 Salvadorans in the United States under Temporary Protected Status.
Maduro called Bukele a "traitor” and denounced his hostile move as "embarrassing,” saying history will remember El Salvador as a "puppet” of the United States, which has been lending allout support to the Venezuelan opposition in a coup bid against the legal Caracas government.
"It’s embarrassing to see how he (Bukele) cowers before the imperialist (United States), a person who had come into the presidency with hope for the Salvadoran people. But history is history. Bukele will not be saved by history. His place will be that of a traitor, a fighter for imperialism, it’s as simple as that,” Maduro said.
On Saturday, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele announced via Twitter that Venezuela's diplomats had two days to leave the country. Bukele said that it would accept the diplomatic mission of opposition leader Juan Guaido.
Guaido appointed himself interim president of Venezuela earlier this year, plunging the country into a political crisis. Since then, mostly Western powers, led by the United States, continue to impose sanctions and tighten other diplomatic vices on Venezuela to force democratically-elected President Nicolas Maduro to step down.
On Sunday, the government announced in a statement that it would be expelling El Salvador's representatives from the country for "breathing oxygen into the failing U.S. strategy of intervention and economic blockade against the people of Venezuela."
He accused Bukele of playing the "sad role of a pawn" in U.S. foreign policy.
Bukele, who earlier this summer assumed the office of the president, responded Sunday, saying that Maduro had expelled the diplomats placed in Venezuela by his predecessor, Salvador Sanchez Ceren.
"I forgot to mention that our government had not appointed a single official in our embassy in Venezuela," he said in a tweet. "So, the Maduro regime has just expelled officials appointed 100 percent by the government of Sanchez Ceren, whom they called their friends."
Following Bukele's move on Saturday, U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Embajador Ronald Johnson congratulated him for being "on the right side of history."
The move came days after the United States and El Salvador reached a deal to extend work permits for an estimated 250,000 Salvadorans in the United States under Temporary Protected Status.
Maduro called Bukele a "traitor” and denounced his hostile move as "embarrassing,” saying history will remember El Salvador as a "puppet” of the United States, which has been lending allout support to the Venezuelan opposition in a coup bid against the legal Caracas government.
"It’s embarrassing to see how he (Bukele) cowers before the imperialist (United States), a person who had come into the presidency with hope for the Salvadoran people. But history is history. Bukele will not be saved by history. His place will be that of a traitor, a fighter for imperialism, it’s as simple as that,” Maduro said.