United States President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela should be considered \u201cclosed in its entirety\u201d, but gave no further details as Washington ramps up pressure on President Nicolas Maduro\u2019s government.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo all airlines, pilots, drug dealers and human traffickers, please consider the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela to be closed in its entirety,\u201d Trump said in a Truth Social post.<\/p>\n
Venezuela\u2019s communications ministry, which handles all press inquiries for the government, did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Trump\u2019s post.<\/p>\n
The US Defence Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
US strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean have been underway for months, along with a US military buildup in the region, and Trump has authorised covert operations by its Central Intelligence Agency in Venezuela.<\/p>\n
The president told military service members this week that the U.S. would \u201cvery soon\u201d begin land operations to stop suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers.<\/p>\n
Last week, the US aviation regulator warned major airlines of a \u201cpotentially hazardous situation\u201d when flying over Venezuela due to a \u201cworsening security situation and heightened military activity in or around\u201d the South American country.<\/p>\n
Venezuela revoked operating rights for six major international airlines that had suspended flights to the country after the US Federal Aviation Administration warning.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has accused Maduro of involvement in drug trafficking, a charge he has denied.<\/p>\n
Maduro, in power since 2013, has said that Trump is seeking to oust him and that Venezuelan citizens and the military will resist any such attempt.<\/p>\n
US forces in the region have so far focused on counter-narcotics operations, although the assembled firepower far outweighs anything needed for them.<\/p>\n
They have carried out at least 21 strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific since September, killing at least 83 people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United States President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela should be considered \u201cclosed in its entirety\u201d, but gave no further details as Washington ramps up pressure on President Nicolas Maduro\u2019s government. \u201cTo all airlines, pilots, drug dealers and human traffickers, please consider the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13720,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13721,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13719\/revisions\/13721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}