MANAGUA (AFP) — The US Secretary of Commerce cancelled a visit to Nicaragua because "circumstances have changed," Washington's envoy here said Tuesday, days after the Central American country recognized two rebel Georgian provinces.
Carlos Gutierrez was due to visit Nicaragua at the end of September and also meet with President Daniel Ortega, who last week followed Russia's lead and recognized the Georgian separatist provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
"The secretary's office said that now is not an appropriate moment for the visit because circumstances have changed," said US ambassador Robert Callahan.
In response to journalists' questions on whether the cancellation was linked to Nicaragua's stance on Georgia, Callahan underlined the US position on the conflict, without mentioning Nicaragua.
"We have have publicly said regarding ... the Russian occupation of these two entities and the Russian recognition, that this is a violation of some of the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council," Callahan said.
He also underlined that his government was interested in "maintaining close and cordial relations" with Nicaragua.
Ortega, a former Marxist guerilla who had close ties to the ex-Soviet Union, went further than other leftist Latin American governments in his defiance of Washington by recognizing the two breakaway provinces after an armed conflict between Moscow and Tbilisi over South Ossetia last month.
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