Venezuelan government denounced on Monday that a U.S. Navy warplane on counter-narcotics missions crossed into Venezuelan airspace Saturday night, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said on Monday.
Maduro said the government has demanded that the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela explain the violation of its airspace by a U.S. military plane.
Maduro said that he will meet Tuesday morning with U.S. ambassador of Venezuela Patrick Duddy in Miraflores Palace to receive the explanation.
Maduro and Defense Minister Gustavo Rangel Briceno presented the denouncement in a press conference.
Rangel said that radars of Miquetia's international airport detected Saturday at 8:40 p.m. local time (0010 GMT) a U.S. military plane, S-3 Viking aircraft, over the Venezuelan-owned Caribbean island of Orchilan, northeast of Venezuela.
"We ordered the airplane to identify itself," Rangel said. "We have recorded proof of the conversation between ground control in Venezuela and the aircraft pilot."
Maduro and Rangel said that the incident is part of the campaign of "provocations" that supposedly Washington and Colombian are developing to "destabilize" Venezuela and the whole region.
U.S. pilot during the recorded conversation with the control tower said "he wasn't aware of being in Venezuelan airspace", which Rangel doubts.
"We believe this was a conscious action made by the U.S. Armed Force, it is one shackle more to the chain of provocations" that Washington supposedly is doing against Venezuela, Rangel said.
The S-3 aircraft, originally used for anti-submarine warfare and maritime surveillance, are now used largely for counter- narcotics activities.
Venezuelan denouncement was made at a moment when the tension between Colombia and Venezuela has reemerged after the Interpol's report that implicates Venezuela with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
(Xinhua News Agency May 20, 2008)
