Colombian President Gustavo Petro said a “foreign president” cannot declare another country’s airspace closed, after Donald Trump issued the warning to airlines and drug traffickers.
The US President said on Saturday (29) that the airspace over and around Venezuela should be considered “completely closed”, as part of the escalation against dictator Nicolas Maduro.
Caracas denounced Trump’s warning, describing it as a “colonial threat” to its sovereignty.
Without specifically mentioning Trump, the Colombian president questioned the measure on Saturday evening on the social media network
“A foreign president cannot close national airspace, otherwise the concept of national sovereignty and the concept of ‘international law’ will end,” Petro wrote in his letter, which he also published in his capacity as the current President of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States.
According to Petro, if a foreign president can declare the closure of another country’s airspace without the support of international standards, it means that the International Civil Aviation Organization (Oaci) is not doing its part. For him, the agency, which is the only global authority responsible for regulating civil aviation, fails when it is unable to prevent unilateral actions that violate the air sovereignty of states.
Trump’s warning came after US aviation officials last week urged civilian aircraft operating in Venezuelan airspace to “act with caution” due to “the deteriorating security situation and increased military activity in or around Venezuela.”
Since then, six airlines, which account for a large portion of South American traffic, have suspended flights to and from Venezuela.
In response, the Venezuelan aviation authority canceled the operating permissions of Spain’s Iberia, Portugal’s TAP, Colombia’s Avianca, the Colombian subsidiary of Chile-Brazilian company Latam, Brazil’s GOL, and Turkey’s Turkish company.
“To all airlines, pilots, drug dealers, and human traffickers, please consider the airspace over and around Venezuela to be completely closed,” Trump said in a Saturday morning post on Truth Social.