US bans arms sales to Venezuela

WASHINGTON
Washington banned all U.S. arms sales to Venezuela on Monday, punishing President Hugo Chavez for his ties with Cuba and Iran and for what it believes is his inaction against guerrillas from neighboring Colombia.

The sanctions symbolically escalate a diplomatic crisis with a major U.S. energy supplier and come after years of friction between the nations on issues ranging from trade to oil prices that have dragged ties to their worst state in decades.

Despite Venezuela's repeated assertions that it works against terrorism, and particularly militants in the Andean region, the United States designated it on Monday as a country considered uncooperative in the U.S. war on terrorism.

While the move is not as severe as adding a country to the U.S. blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism, which includes Iran and Cuba, it does trigger sanctions and is likely to provoke an angry response from Chavez.

The sanctions extend the Bush administration's practice in recent years of stopping country-to-country sales involving American arms and technology to Venezuela.

Now Washington also prohibits all U.S. commercial weapons sales to Venezuela and prevents any re-sales of American arms and technology from other nations.

Such sales have been in decline anyway. Last year, the U.S. government approved licensing for commercial military sales to Venezuela worth a total of $8.5 million, mainly for parts for C-130 transport planes, down from $41 million in 2004, one U.S. official said.

Maripili Hernandez, Venezuelan vice minister of Foreign Relations for North America and Multilateral Affairs, dismissed the U.S. move.

"From a diplomatic point of view, those classifications that the United States makes are absolutely irrelevant. We don't take them into account," she said.

OIL THREAT

The top U.S. diplomat for Latin America said the Bush administration took the step with "enormous reluctance," but noted the countries' traditionally strong ties had eroded under Chavez.

That deterioration has weighed on world oil markets in recent years, adding to supply worries that have helped cause record high crude prices.

Governing policy over the largest oil reserves outside of the Middle East, Chavez has periodically threatened to stop oil exports to Venezuela's biggest market, the United States, but the
OPEC member has remained a reliable supplier.

Larry Birns of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs think tank in Washington said the move was a powerful symbol of U.S. disdain for Chavez, but would have little practical impact on a country that has turned increasingly to suppliers like Russia.

"This is a political act. The State Department has been looking to up the ante without provoking a full-blown meltdown," he said. "It is an escalation of U.S. hostility toward Venezuela."

State Department spokesman Eric Watnik explained Monday's decision, citing Chavez's relations with the two U.S. foes, Iran and Cuba, and accusing him of allowing leftist guerrillas from neighboring Colombia to operate from Venezuela.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican, who chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement: "The hostility shown by the Venezuelan leadership toward the United States, along with its efforts to sow totalitarianism in the hemisphere, at the expense of the Venezuelan people, should be alarming to everyone."

(Additional reporting by Doug Palmer and Andrea Shalal-Esa in Washington and Magdalena Morales in Caracas)