WASHINGTON- The United States will take “additional measures” if Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro does not publish the minutes of the election, the White House warned on Friday, a day after imposing sanctions on 16 officials “for electoral fraud.”
“Maduro has options and decisions that only he can make and we have made it very clear to him that the first thing he needs to do is publish all the electoral data and the election results,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
“We have issued sanctions. We are not going to rule out anything in the future,” he added in a telephone press conference.
“Sanctions”
On Thursday, Washington sanctioned 16 officials from Venezuela’s electoral authorities, the Supreme Court, the National Assembly, the armed forces and intelligence services, all of whom are close to Chavez.
To date, the US has imposed economic sanctions on more than 100 Venezuelans, including Maduro himself, accused of drug trafficking, and 100 entities.
The key issue now is whether Maduro “is going to do the right thing for Venezuelans or not. He has to make that decision and if he doesn’t we’ll have to make some additional decisions on our own,” Kirby said.
The spokesman did not specify which ones. The oil sector was spared further sanctions on Thursday, so the licenses granted to several oil companies, such as the American Chevron, the Spanish Repsol and the French Maurel & Prom, to operate in Venezuela remain in force.
Like other countries, the United States believes that Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, who was granted asylum by Spain, won the elections on July 28 by a wide margin.
