Iran’s former ambassador to Caracas said on Friday that US President Donald Trump is exaggerating the threat of drugs from Venezuela to justify an attack on the country, while ignoring the role of Washington’s traditional ally, Colombia.
Hojatollah Soltani said Washington’s efforts blaming Venezuelan drug flows to the United States are “lies and part of psychological warfare.”
The Trump administration has conducted attacks on at least six boats off the coast of Venezuela it says were carrying drugs since last month.
"Trump’s allegations about narcotics are merely a propaganda excuse to target a country whose only 'crime' is demanding the right to self-determination and maintaining independent political sovereignty," he added.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that he had authorized CIA covert operations in Venezuela, saying of alleged drug flows from the country that “a large portion enters by sea," adding Caracas had released “thousands of prisoners and mentally ill people” into the United States as undocumented immigrants.
Soltani said the main problem lay with Venezuela's neighbor Colombia, a traditional US ally.
“The vast majority of Latin America’s drug output occurs in Colombia, a US political and military ally hosting American bases,” he told state TV via phone on Friday. “For 40 years, Washington has run the so-called ‘Colombia Plan’ to curb production, by their own admission.”
Plan Colombia, launched in 2000, supports US-Colombia efforts against cartels, insurgents and narcotics through military assistance, crop eradication and development programs.
The Trump administration decertified Colombia as a partner in the fight against illegal drugs in September for the first time in nearly 30 years over alleged failures in its drug war, the Associated Press reported.
“International statistics show that 70% of Colombian cocaine reaches the United States via the Pacific Ocean, with no links to Venezuela by sea, land or air,” Soltani added. “Of the rest, 25% uses other routes, and just 5% transits Venezuela, where the government combats drugs with UN-backed resolve.”
Iran and Venezuela are close allies and the United States has criticized the relationship between its heavily-sanctioned adversaries.