MOSCOW, October 25 (RIA Novosti) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ordered a revision of all relations with Spain due to the support Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has shown to Maduro's opposition, La Vanguardia newspaper reported.
"I have ordered… the Foreign Minister Rafael Ramirez to review all relations with Spain due to this unfriendly and meddling act of support to the ultra-right groups from Mr. Rajoy," La Vanguardia quoted Maduro as saying Friday.
Maduro asked Rajoy to respect Venezuela like the Venezuelan people respect the Spanish and insisted that Rajoy's government should not meddle in another country's internal affairs, the newspaper reported.
Maduro decided to revise the country's relations with Spain over Spanish Prime Minister's call for Maduro's opponent Leopoldo Lopez to be released from jail. Lopez, who led the 2014 protests in Venezuela, was arrested in February and was charged with arson, terrorism, homicide and conspiracy, and faces a ten-year imprisonment.
The protests broke out in Venezuela in February. Thousands of people took to the streets of Caracas to protest against Maduro's government. Demonstrators, many of them students, were demanding economic reforms to tackle inflation and growing poverty. Forty-three people died, with nearly 1,000 people injured and over 3,000 detained.
