CARACAS: President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday (Jan 1) dodged a question about an alleged US attack on a dock in Venezuela but said he was open to cooperation with Washington after weeks of American military pressure.
“Wherever they want and whenever they want,” Maduro said of the idea of dialogue with the United States on drug trafficking, oil and migration in an interview on state TV.
Maduro’s government has neither confirmed nor denied what President Donald Trump announced on Monday: a US attack on a docking facility that served Venezuelan drug trafficking boats.
Asked point-blank if he confirmed or denied the attack, Maduro said Thursday “this could be something we talk about in a few days”.
The attack would amount to the first known land strike of the US military campaign against drug trafficking from Latin America.
Trump on Monday said the United States hit and destroyed a docking area for alleged Venezuelan drug boats.
Trump would not say if it was a military or CIA operation or where the strike occurred, noting only that it was “along the shore.”
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” he told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
“So we hit all the boats and now we hit the area, it’s the implementation area, that’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”
In the interview, Maduro insisted that Venezuela has defended itself well as the US carried out its military campaign at sea.
“Our people are safe and in peace,” he said.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro fueled rumours about the location of the attack, saying “Trump bombed a factory in Maracaibo” where “they mix coca paste to make cocaine.”
That led some to speculate on social media that a fire at wholesale chemical distributor Primazol’s warehouses in Maracaibo may have been related to the attack.
Primazol chief Carlos Eduardo Siu denied those rumours, saying “President Petro, not here – we neither package nor manufacture any kind of narcotics.”