Santo Domingo: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday supervised the seizure of a second aircraft belonging to Venezuela’s leftist government in less than a year, showing a hard line despite nascent diplomacy.
Rubio, a passionate opponent of Latin America’s leftist authoritarians like Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, witnessed the confiscation of the aircraft at the end of his first trip in the job, which took him to five countries of Latin America.
Rubio traveled to a military airstrip in the capital Santo Domingo where, in front of cameras, a Dominican Republic prosecutor and US law enforcement representative together taped a sign that said “seized” on a Dassault Falcon 200 jet bearing a Venezuelan flag.
“We are very grateful to the Dominican Republic for participating and cooperating with the US justice system,” Rubio said in an interview with SIN News.
“The message is that when there are sanctions because they are violating human rights, they are violating a whole series of things, traveling to Iran, helping countries that really wish harm to the United States,” he said, “these sanctions are going to be applied and reinforced.”
Dominican Republic authorities detained the aircraft last year after US authorities said it had violated unilateral US sanctions against Venezuela.
Venezuelan officials used the plane to fly to Greece, Turkiye, Russia, Nicaragua and Cuba, and had taken it to the Dominican Republic for maintenance, according to the US State Department.
Maduro’s oil minister also used the plane to attend a meeting of the OPEC oil cartel in the United Arab Emirates in 2019, according to the Treasury Department.
In September, the United States, under then-president Joe Biden, announced the seizure of a first Venezuelan government airplane in the Dominican Republic that had been used to transport Maduro on international trips.
President Donald Trump has long vowed to clamp down on Maduro and in his first term unsuccessfully sought to remove him, after wide international questioning on the legitimacy of Maduro’s re-election.
But an envoy from Trump, Richard Grenell, last week traveled to Caracas to meet with Maduro, securing the release of six US prisoners.
Venezuela said the talks were held with “mutual respect,” but Rubio and other US officials have insisted that there was no backtracking on the US refusal to accept Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate president.
Rubio said that Venezuela remained a concern for US national security, pointing to the mass migration from it as the economy implodes.
“Venezuela is an issue of national security, not just of lack of democracy,” Rubio told reporters Wednesday in Guatemala.
“It is about a government — a regime — that has harmed more than seven million Venezuelans, and all the neighboring countries that have had to face the reality of this massive migration,” he said, referring to Venezuelans who have left.
Grenell also pressed Maduro to accept the return of Venezuelans deported from the United States.
Trump quickly after taking office stripped roughly 600,000 Venezuelans in the United States of protection from deportation.
Biden had refused to deport them due to the security and economic crises in Venezuela.
Rubio renews US hard line with Venezuela plane seizure
https://arab.news/rs75k
Rubio renews US hard line with Venezuela plane seizure
- A Dominican Republic prosecutor and US law enforcement representative together taped a sign that said “seized” on a Dassault Falcon 200 jet bearing a Venezuelan fla
UN chief says 37,000 West Bank Palestinians displaced in 2025; warns Gaza war threatens two-state solution
- ‘We enter 2026 with the clock ticking louder than ever. Will the year ahead bend towards peace or slip into the abyss of despair?” asks Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
- Illegal settlement expansions, demolitions, displacements and evictions in the West Bank are accelerating, he says
NEW YORK CITY: More than 37,000 Palestinians were displaced in the occupied West Bank during 2025, a year in which there were also record-high levels of violence committed by Israeli settlers, UN secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday.
The situation on the ground was rapidly eroding the prospects for a two-state solution, he warned.
“We enter 2026 with the clock ticking louder than ever,” Guterres told the opening session of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.
“Will the year ahead bend towards peace or slip into the abyss of despair?”
Illegal settlement expansions, demolitions, displacements and evictions in the West Bank were accelerating, said Guterres, who described the Israeli actions as destabilizing in nature and unlawful under international law.
“The recently published tender by Israel for 3,401 housing units in the E1 area (of the West Bank), alongside continued demolitions, is profoundly alarming,” he added.
“If carried forward, it would sever the northern and southern West Bank, undermine territorial contiguity, and strike a severe blow to the viability of a two-state solution.”
Turning to the situation in Gaza, Guterres said Palestinians there continued to endure “grave suffering.” More than 500 have been killed since the truce between Israel and Hamas in October, he noted.
“I urge all parties to implement the (ceasefire) agreement in full, exercise maximum restraint, and comply with international law and UN resolutions,” he said.
He called for the rapid and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid at scale, including through the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which Israel reopened on Monday.
Guterres criticized Israeli authorities for the continued suspension of international non-governmental organizations that provide aid, which he said “defies humanitarian principles, undermines fragile progress, and worsens the suffering of civilians.”
Regarding the future of Gaza, he said any sustainable solution must include governance of the territory and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by a unified and internationally recognized Palestinian government.
“Gaza is and must remain an integral part of a Palestinian state,” Guterres added.
He also reaffirmed his support for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, and condemned recent Israeli legislation and other actions he said impeded the ability of the agency to operate, including moves to demolish its Sheikh Jarrah compound in occupied East Jerusalem.
“Let me be clear: UNRWA premises are United Nations premises,” he said. “They are inviolable and immune from any form of interference.”
Guterres described public threats against UNRWA staff as “utterly abhorrent,” and said Israel was obliged under international law to respect the privileges and immunities of the UN.
He also reiterated that an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory was essential.
“There is only one viable route (to peace): the two-state solution, in line with international law and relevant United Nations resolutions,” he said, as he called on the international community to act “with clarity, unity and determination” on the issue.
