Venezuelan President threatens to take his cargo plane international after Argentina "locks it"

On January 1, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced his opposition to the decision of Argentine judges to confiscate a Boeing 747 Dreamliner transport aircraft owned by Emtrasur, a subsidiary of Venezuela's national airline Conviasa.

Bị Argentina 'khóa chân' một máy bay vận tải, Tổng thống Venezuela nổi nóng dọa đưa ra quốc tế

Emtrasur, a subsidiary of Venezuela's national airline Conviasa, owns the plane seized by Argentina. (Source: AP)

In October 2022, the Columbia Court (USA) requested Argentina to keep the Venezuelan Boeing 747 Dreamliner, leased from the Iranian airline Mahan Air, to investigate whether the plane was involved in terrorist activities.

Venezuela's Conviasa airline is also on the list of entities sanctioned by the US Treasury Department.

Argentina seized the Venezuelan plane under an agreement signed between Washington and Buenos Aires. Argentine judges said that the country's seizure of the plane was "appropriate".

However, Mr. Maduro completely rejected the ruling of the Argentine judges, assessing Buenos Aires' actions as an "illegal" act that violated the Convention on International Civil Aviation.

According to the Venezuelan leader, the agreement between the US and Argentina cannot be applied to a third country, because this "obviously violates" the regulations signed in multilateral agreements, and urged Buenos Aires to "immediately" return the plane to Caracas.

Criticizing the "unfriendly behavior and lack of the most basic international courtesy" of the Argentine judges, President Maduro announced that he would appeal to international bodies over the judges' statements of "bias, discrimination, ignorance of international obligations".

Argentina has not yet commented on Venezuela's statement.

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