CARACAS, Venezuela — The head of Venezuela’s government-controlled assembly on Thursday accused the top U.S. diplomat in Caracas of promoting a coup and threatened to take “corresponding diplomatic measures” against him but stopped short of saying he would be expelled. National Constituent Assembly president Delcy Rodriguez issued a series of tweets targeting U.S. charge d’affaires Todd Robinson. Relations have long been tense between the United States and Venezuela, an oil-rich country in a deepening political and economic crisis. In his long diplomatic career Robinson has worked in Colombia, Bolivia, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic. Rodriguez retorted that Robinson began his new diplomatic assignment on “the wrong foot.”More recently, Robinson accused Venezuelan authorities of unjustly holding Joshua Holt, a Utah man jailed on weapons charges.

Source: National Post February 22, 2018 22:57 UTC