Trinidad not getting involved in Venezuela’s turmoil

(Trinidad Guardian) Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young says Trinidad and To­ba­go will not get in­volved in the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal tur­moil in Venezuela and says he has no in­for­ma­tion of a “coup” in the coun­try.

His re­sponse came dur­ing a news con­fer­ence to­day af­ter US pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump an­nounced that the US now recog­nis­es Venezuela’s Op­po­si­tion Leader Juan Guai­do as the coun­try’s in­ter­im pres­i­dent.

Guai­do swore him­self in as pres­i­dent on Wednes­day.

Young was asked for a re­sponse on the sit­u­a­tion.

“At the end of the day, sov­er­eign states should re­spect sov­er­eign states, and that re­mains Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion,” he said.

As for Trump’s recog­ni­tion of the op­po­si­tion leader, Young replied: “That’s his pre­rog­a­tive. He can say what­ev­er he wants. At the end of the day, as far as I am aware, Venezuela is a sov­er­eign coun­try.”

He said that to­day, while there are mas­sive an­ti-gov­ern­ment protests across the coun­try, the gov­ern­ment of Venezuela con­tact­ed him on an­oth­er mat­ter.

“I cer­tain­ly would not wish for any coun­try to have a coup,” Young said.

“We stand ready to as­sist in what­ev­er way we can, but we cer­tain­ly don’t think that one gov­ern­ment call­ing for an­oth­er gov­ern­ment to fall is the right thing,” Young said.