April 12, 2019
SANTIAGO (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday accused China of aiding Venezuela’s economic collapse by bankrolling President Nicolas Maduro’s government and said Russian troop presence in the country was an “obvious provocation.”
“China and others are being hypocritical in calling for ‘non-intervention’ in Venezuela’s affairs,” Pompeo said in a speech in Chile’s capital. “Their own financial interventions have helped destroy the country.”
He slammed the arrival of Russian troops in Venezuela, and said Russia’s investments in police training and a satellite compound in Nicaragua “to put it mildly aren’t good.”
“We shouldn’t stand for Russia escalating an already precarious situation in these ways,” Pompeo added.
(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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