TEHRAN – Iran’s Foreign Ministry has strongly criticised the US actions against Venezuela, particularly the increased rewards provided for information that will help the US government capture President Nicholas Maduro.
“The interventional actions and rhetoric of US officials in the domestic affairs of sovereign nations, including Venezuela, make the UN Charter and fundamental principles of international law unprecedented,” the Foreign Office wrote in a post on X-account on Friday.
The US justification for the prize money framed as part of an ongoing effort to combat international drug trafficking was dismissed by Caracas as a blatant political stunt. Reflecting this sentiment, Iran accused the United States of adopting “radical unilateralism and illegal enforcement measures” in pursuit of “illegal foreign policy objectives.”
The ministry stressed that it cannot afford to maintain indifference to this dangerous tendency to target “the UN collective normative and ethical foundations.”
This latest escalation comes against the backdrop of sustained US pressure on Venezuela. For more than a decade, the US administration has openly supported the defeated opposition, acknowledged its parallel government and imposed crippling sanctions aimed at overthrowing Maduro’s government.
The reward for capturing Maduro has increased dramatically in recent years. Initially set at $15 million under the Trump administration, it was later raised to $25 million by the Biden administration, matching the rewards once offered to Osama bin Laden. The current $50 million bounty, released just weeks after the Trump administration negotiated a prisoner exchange with Venezuela, is seen as a prominent sign of the increasingly hostile, interventionist and illegal attitude Washington has adopted.