As pressure grows, Venezuela’s Maduro addresses UN
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro showed up unexpectedly at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday to “defend his country” as six nations accused him of crimes against humanity and President Donald Trump hinted at taking military action.
The surprise visit came after Maduro threatened to skip the global gathering, citing fears he could be assassinated as his once-wealthy OPEC nation spirals into a brutal economic crisis and international pressure mounts for the socialist leader to step down.
In a rambling, 50-minute General Assembly speech directed mostly at U.S. policy, Maduro spoke for well over the allotted time and said that the United States “wants to continue giving orders to the world as though the world were its own property.”
“From this very rostrum a threat was issued yesterday to governments of the world that orders should be obeyed and the U.S. policy should be followed or else those countries would suffer from the consequences,” Maduro said.
He was referring to Trump’s speech Tuesday in which the U.S. president outlined the rationale for his more unilateral “America-first” policy.
It appeared unlikely that Maduro would cross paths with Trump, despite the U.S. president’s comments earlier in the day that he was willing to meet with his Venezuelan counterpart if it would help ease suffering in the South American nation.
“I’m willing to meet with anybody anytime I can (to) save lives, help people,” Trump said as he was pummeled by reporters’ questions about whether the U.S. would ever intervene military to remove Maduro.
Maduro responded to the meeting comments in kind, saying that he and Trump “certainly have our differences, but that is what we have to dialogue about.”
“Donald Trump said he was worried about Venezuela, he wanted to help Venezuela,” Maduro said. “Good. I stand ready to talk with an open agenda on everything that he might wish to talk about with the United States of America.”