TEGUCIGALPA: Honduras on Wednesday (Aug 28) stated it was ending an extradition treaty with the USA that has been used to imprison drug traffickers, accusing Washington of meddling in Honduran-Venezuelan relations.
“The interference and interventionism of the USA, in addition to its intention to handle the politics of Honduras via its embassy and different representatives, is insupportable,” President Xiomara Castro stated on social media platform X, saying she had ordered the international ministry to terminate the treaty.
“They assault, ignore and violate with impunity the rules and practices of worldwide regulation, which promote respect for the sovereignty and self-determination of peoples, non-intervention and common peace. Sufficient,” stated the leftist chief.
Castro’s authorities is a staunch ally of Venezuela, presently beneath strain from Washington and different international locations after the disputed reelection of President Nicolas Maduro.
Castro stated she had requested Honduran Overseas Minister Enrique Reina to “denounce” the nation’s extradition treaty with the USA.
Below worldwide regulation, a denunciation is a unilateral act by a celebration looking for to terminate its participation in a treaty.
Following Castro’s announcement, the federal government despatched a notice to Washington’s diplomatic mission speaking its choice to finish the treaty. Reina shared the letter on social media.
The extradition settlement is taken into account a key device to dismantle the “narco-state” that, in line with US authorities, was in-built Honduras when Juan Orlando Hernandez was president from 2014 to 2022.
Fifty Hondurans accused of drug trafficking have been extradited to the USA over the previous decade, together with Hernandez, who was sentenced in June in New York to 45 years in jail.
Rasel Tome, vice chairman of the Honduran congress, instructed AFP that in line with worldwide regulation, each states should sit right down to analyse Honduras’ choice and that “in the event that they agree, the settlement can proceed.”
The row comes after US Ambassador to Honduras Laura Dogu voiced concern a couple of assembly between Honduran authorities and Venezuelan Protection Minister Basic Vladimir Padrino Lopez, who’s beneath US sanctions.
Dogu instructed reporters that she was shocked to see Honduran Protection Minister Jose Manuel Zelaya and the nation’s navy chief sitting subsequent to a “drug trafficker” in Venezuela.
Reina described the ambassador’s remarks as a “direct menace to our independence and sovereignty”.
Honduran officers had visited Venezuela to attend the World Cadet Video games sports activities competitors, he famous.
Honduras was one of many few Latin American international locations to congratulate Maduro on his disputed reelection on July 28.
