Cuba slams US sanctions on Venezuela
The headquarters of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas
Cuba has censured the United States for imposing sanctions on Venezuela's state-run oil company for providing Iran with gasoline and other refined oil products.
"We have to denounce this aggression and we have to ask whether the US is beginning a new escalation against the Bolivarian Revolution," the Cuban Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday, Xinhua reported.
The ministry also warned that the embargo could spark “new conflicts” in Latin America, adding that Cuba and other states will make efforts to prevent the United States from violating the international law.
"When Venezuela is attacked the same happens to Cuba," the statement said.
Last week, the US President Barack Obama administration slapped sanctions on seven foreign companies, including Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), over their transactions with the Islamic Republic as part of a US campaign to tighten sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program.
The sanctions will ban the Venezuelan oil company from all US government contracts, US import-export financing and export licenses for sensitive technology. However, it will not stop the company from selling crude oil to the US.
Venezuela's Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro described the sanctions as “illegal, abusive measures taken by this weak government of the United States,” and pointed out that “Those most affected [by the sanctions] are businesspeople of the United States.”
DB/MMA/HRF/MB
