The President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, said yesterday that the government of the United States denied him permission to fly over US airspace, provoking his indignation.
El Nuevo Herald reports that on Thursday, Sept. 19, the President of Venezuela and his first chancellor, Elías Jaua, denounced to local and international media that the United States forbade the President's plane from flying over the airspace of Puerto Rico, on the way to a state visit to China, programmed for Sept. 21.
Through social networks and the official website of the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Venezuela, President Maduro let the Venezuelan population know his discomfort about the events.
"An outrageous thing happened today: the government of the USA denied us passage over Puerto Rican airspace, which as you all know is a State colonized by the empire since the beginning of the XX century", declared Maduro, who qualified the action as an "aggression," according to the website of the Ministry of Foreign Relations.
"Denying a Head of State permission to fly over airspace is a grave insult."
"We denounce this as another imperialist aggression against the Bolivarian Republic's Government. Nobody can deny flyover to a plane transporting the President of the Republic in an international State trip," commented the president.
However, the first official declarations from the United States government deny such accusations.
In an article published by news network CNN this morning, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State declared that the authorization to enter American airspace was granted to Venezuelan auhorities and explained that the initial request was not properly made, which is why the issue was solved in the Embassy in Washington.
According to this version, American airspace entry requests require at least a 3 days notice regarding diplomatic authorizations, while the Venezuelan government made the request just a day before.
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