Venezuela's Ambassador To Russia Pledges Loyalty To Maduro Amid Political Crisis

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th January, 2019) The Venezuelan Embassy in Russia will remain loyal to President Nicolas Maduro regardless of the circumstances, Ambassador Carlos Faria told Sputnik commenting on the current situation in the Latin American country.

"We will remain loyal to our President Nicolas Maduro as we did in the past regardless of the circumstances. Just as we will remain loyal to the heritage of Comandante Hugo Chavez and the ideals of liberator Simon Bolivar," Faria said.

According to the diplomat, the United States has never before promoted the state coup as openly as it does this time.

"It is unacceptable that our government, our people could allow such an intervention by any state to happen. We have never seen the United States acting so openly to promote a coup as we see it now," he stressed.

There is no article in Venezuela's constitution allowing someone to declare himself president, the ambassador underlined.

"Nicolas Maduro won the election last year on May 20. At least two opposition politicians were running in the election on the same conditions with Maduro but they failed to gather the majority of the vote," Faria underlined.

On Wednesday, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself the country's interim president at a mass rally in Caracas. The United States urged Maduro to step down in favor of Guaido. Maduro called the opposition leader "the US puppet" and said that Venezuela was severing diplomatic ties with Washington.