Tegucigalpa (AFP) – Honduras vowed Wednesday to withdraw from an extradition treaty with the United States that has been used to imprison drug traffickers, accusing Washington of meddling in Honduran-Venezuelan relations.
“The interference and interventionism of the United States, as well as its intention to manage the politics of Honduras through its embassy and other representatives, is intolerable,” President Xiomara Castro said on social media platform X. “They attack, ignore and violate with impunity the principles and practices of international law, which promote respect for the sovereignty and self-determination of peoples, non-intervention and universal peace. Enough,” said the leftist leader.
Castro’s government is a staunch ally of Venezuela, currently under pressure from Washington and other countries after the disputed reelection of President Nicolas Maduro. Castro said she had asked Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina to “denounce” the country’s extradition treaty with the United States. Under international law, a denunciation is a unilateral act by a party seeking to terminate its participation in a treaty.
The extradition agreement is considered a key tool to dismantle a “narco-state” that, according to US authorities, was built in Honduras when Juan Orlando Hernandez was president from 2014 to 2022. Fifty Hondurans accused of drug trafficking have been extradited to the United States over the past decade, including Hernandez, who was sentenced in June in New York to 45 years in prison.
The row comes after US Ambassador to Honduras Laura Dogu voiced concern about a meeting between Honduran authorities and Venezuelan Defense Minister General Vladimir Padrino Lopez, who is under US sanctions. Dogu told reporters that she was surprised to see Honduran Defense Minister Jose Manuel Zelaya and the country’s military chief sitting next to a “drug trafficker” in Venezuela. Reina described the ambassador’s remarks as a “direct threat to our independence and sovereignty.”
Honduran officials visited Venezuela to attend the World Cadet Games sports competition, he noted. Honduras was one of the few Latin American countries that congratulated Maduro on his disputed reelection on July 28.
© 2024 AFP
