[NYTr] At UN Gen Assembly Venezuela's FM Pulls No Punches

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AFP via Google - Oct 2, 2007
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iNYrq0JQK1uKKpGRXJcbL-58mGaQ


Venezuela defends Iran, blasts 'hypocritical' US policy on terror

Agence France Presse 

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro on
Tuesday used the General Assembly podium here to defend Iran and to
blast Washington's "hypocritical" policy on terrorism.

He slammed the escalating international media campaign "aimed at
demonizing the Iranian people and government" and called for an end "to
the madness of the war in Iraq."

Pointing to the "threatening statements against the peace of the people
of Iran," he said it was time "to stop this campaign of
demonization..., to build alliances to stop the war-mongering madness
of the elites who rule the United States."

Washington has not ruled out using military action to force Iran, which
is suspected of trying to acquire nuclear weapons, to suspend its
sensitive nuclear fuel work as demanded by the UN Security Council.

Maduro replaced his firebrand president, Hugo Chavez, who announced at
the last minute that he would not travel to New York for the General
Assembly session.

Last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Caracas for
talks with Chavez, in a mini-tour of Iran's anti-US allies that also
took him to Bolivia. He made the trip after visiting New York to
address the UN General Assembly.

Venezuela and Bolivia have reached a number of trade and aid agreements
with Iran, particularly in the energy sector.

Maduro also denounced Washington's "hypocritical" policy of combating
terrorism while at the same time protecting "one of the most dangerous
terrorists," Cuban anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles.

The minister renewed Caracas' request for the extradition of Posada, a
former US Central Intelligence Agency operative wanted by Havana and
Caracas in connection with the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that
killed 73 people.

The plane took off from Caracas and he is accused of plotting the
bombing in Venezuela.

Posada, Maduro noted, "is free and protected by the US government in
Florida. This terrorist has served the CIA for 40 years."

Maduro said he had turned to the Security Council's counter-terrorism
committee for help in trying to secure Posada's extradition so that he
can be tried in Venezuela.

Posada, 79, was released from prison last May by a Texas judge who
dismissed immigration fraud charges leveled against him in May 2005
after he was arrested for allegedly entering the United States
illegally.

US authorities have refused to honor extradition requests from
Venezuela and Cuba -- where he is also sought in connection with the
1976 plane bombing -- citing a UN convention banning deportations to
countries with a pattern of torture or flagrant human rights abuses.

Cuba also accuses Posada of planning several assassination attempts
against Cuban President Fidel Castro, and of setting off bombs at
several Havana hotels in 1997.

The Cuban-born Venezuelan has not been indicted in the United States
for any of the attacks, though a grand jury in New Jersey is reportedly
investigating his role in a 1997 Havana hotel bombing that killed an
Italian tourist.

Despite his tongue-lashing of Washington, Maduro late Monday met with
US Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Tom Shannon
at Venezuela's UN mission to discuss the testy bilateral ties.