Venezuela freezes relations with US

The Venezuelan News Agency published the article below on June 5. The decision to freeze relations with the US government came after the US imposed sanctions on Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA, over economic ties with Iran.

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Relations between Venezuela and the US are frozen, said Venezuela's foreign minster Nicolas Maduro.

Maduro said the government of President Hugo Chavez has tried to restore respectful dialogue with Washington.

Maduro said the Venezuelan government aspired to have relations of respect and open communication.

"We do not want a confrontation, but we do demand respect," he said. "We have the sovereign right to establish commercial relations with any country in the world."

Maduro made the announcement during a television interview with Venezuelan journalist Jose Vicente Rangel.

Maduro said the Venezuelan government aspires to have respectful relations and healthy communication with the US, "but [US] foreign affairs and its disdainful approach towards Latin America seems to be developing a negative tendency”.

"On our side, we have made all the efforts to restore fluid communications and relations based on mutual respect with the government of the United States ...

"The attempts to restore the situation fell down as a result of the incoherences, weaknesses and pressure from the far-right lobbies, to which that government is subservient."

Maduro said bilateral relations "remain immobile and there are no expectations that it could move towards a positive relationship of communication and respect in the near future".

Neither nation has had an ambassador to the other since the nomination of Larry Palmer as the US envoy to Caracas in 2010 was rejected by the Venezuelan government due to Palmer's disrespectful and interventionist statements opposing Venezuelan policies.

In August 2010, Palmer said during a confirmation hearing in the US Senate that the morale of Venezuela's Bolivarian National Armed Forces was low and that the US must support "civic leaders" to promote "a positive change in Venezuela".

Such statements were considered by the Venezuelan government "a serious precedent of interventionism and meddling”.

After the controversy, Washington revoked the visa of Venezuelan ambassador to the US Bernardo Alvarez.

The most recent incident between Caracas and Washington took place on May 24, when the US Department of State announced sanctions against the Venezuelan state-run oil company PDVSA due to its commercial relations with Iran.

"They are trying to intimidate us," Maduro said.