SAN JOSE, (Reuters) – Costa Rica fired its ambassador in Venezuela after the diplomat gave an interview in which he defended the Venezuelan government, the Central American country said on Wednesday.
Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis had said that the government did not share the opinion of ambassador Federico Picado, whose interview with local newspaper La Nacion was published last weekend.
“The content of the statements and the possibility of giving an interview was not previously discussed,” as is the rule, Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel Gonzalez said in a news conference.
In the interview, Picado, who had been in Caracas for two months, asserted that a shortage of basic products was due to “political factors” and “big business” trying to destabilize the country and hurt the government’s credibility.
