Guatemala cuts ties with Venezuela, closes embassy

ANKARA

Guatemala’s new President Alejandro Giammattei has cut diplomatic ties with Venezuela, ordering the closure of its embassy in Caracas.

The decision came on Thursday, days after Giammattei assumed the presidential post on Tuesday with an inauguration ceremony, attended by a delegation representing Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido.

"We have instructed the foreign minister that the only person left in the embassy in Venezuela should return and that we definitively end relations with the government of Venezuela," Giammattei said, according to local daily Prensa Libre.

"We are going to close the embassy," he added.

"The Italian citizen who presides over the sister Republic of Guatemala has immediately thrown himself at the feet of [U.S. President] Donald Trump," Venezuela's Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said in response, referring that Giammattei was following the political steps of Washington which recognizes Guaido as the legitimate leader of the South American nation.

"Certainly his government will become another joke in bad taste, and lives on borrowed time," Arreaza said. "Our respect and affection are for the dignified Guatemalan people."

Guatemalan general elections were held on June 16, 2019, to elect the President, Congress and local councils. Since no candidate won a majority in the first round, a second round was held on Aug. 11 and VAMOS leader Alejandro Giammattei won the election in the second round of voting.

Incumbent President Jimmy Morales was constitutionally barred from running for a second four-year term.

Since the beginning of 2019, Venezuela has been embroiled in political unrest as President Nicolas Maduro and Guaido engage in a power battle, while the country's economy has been in precipitous decline following a global downturn in the price of crude oil.