WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US State Department announced Friday it has informed Venezuela's ambassador to Washington that "he will be expelled" in retaliation for the expulsion of the US envoy to Caracas.
The move was announced after the US Treasury said Friday it was freezing any US assets of two senior Venezuelan officials and a former official after accusing them of aiding Colombian rebels involved in drug trafficking.
"We have informed the Venezuelan ambassador to the United States that he will be expelled and that he should leave the United States," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.
He did not say how the ambassador was informed, but it was apparently not in a direct conversation with a US official.
McCormack noted that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he was recalling his ambassador to Washington, Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, and did not know whether he had actually left already, but added he was still being expelled.
Chavez on Thursday ordered US ambassador Patrick Duddy to leave the country within 72 hours, in a move he described as an act of solidarity with Venezuela's ally Bolivia, which also expelled its US envoy.
Also Thursday Chavez announced that his government had uncovered a coup plot hatched by active and retired military officers, which he said had tacit US approval.
Russia said Monday it was dispatching a nuclear cruiser and other warships and planes to the Caribbean for the joint exercises with Venezuela -- the first such maneuvers in the US vicinity since the Cold War.
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