US President Obama issued an executive order Monday imposing sanctions on members of the Venezuelan military and intelligence services.
Obama also invoked his emergency powers to declare "a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela.”
A declaration by the group’s foreign ministers meeting in Ecuador denounced President Obama’s move as a “threat to the internationally recognized principle of sovereignty and non-interference in the affairs of foreign states.”
UNASUR comprises Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana, Columbia, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam, Uruguay, Chile and Ecuador. It was established in December 2004.
