The government of Venezuela announced the temporary suspension, starting from July 31, of commercial flights to and from Panama and the Dominican Republic in rejection of what it described as "interventionist actions" by those countries regarding the presidential elections held in the South American nation on Sunday.
In a statement published on its social media, the Ministry of Popular Power for Transport of Venezuela specified that the suspension - which will take effect at 8:00 local time (12:00 GMT) on Wednesday - also responds to "the presumption of the use of civil aviation for purposes not compatible with principles of security."
The Ministry of Transportation says that it "reserves legal actions, in firm support of the political decisions of the State, in order to uphold, preserve, and defend the inalienable right of the Venezuelan people to self-determination."
A post from the Aviación Online portal specified the airlines and flights affected by the decision of the Maduro government.
Maduro has made the decision to secure the entry to the country from two nations commonly used by Venezuelans living abroad and citizens of other nationalities to make flight connections due to the low availability of direct flights to and from Venezuela.
At the same time, the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) called for an extraordinary meeting for this Wednesday to address the results of the elections in Venezuela at the request of a dozen member countries.
The meeting will take place on July 31 at 3:00 PM EDT (7:00 PM GMT) in the Simón Bolívar room at the OAS headquarters in Washington.
The urgent session was convened at the request of twelve member countries, including the seven Latin American governments to which Nicolás Maduro ordered the withdrawal of their diplomatic personnel in Caracas.
The meeting was convened "at the request of the Permanent Missions of Argentina, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, the United States, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay."
In recent hours, the Government of Venezuela demanded that Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay withdraw "immediately" their representatives from Venezuelan territory, in retaliation for expressing their concern over irregularities in the elections.
So far, the OAS has not commented on the elections, amid the rejection from the international community and the Venezuelan opposition regarding the results provided by the National Electoral Council (CNE), which declared Nicolás Maduro the winner.
In its first report given in the early hours of Monday, the CNE declared Nicolás Maduro the winner with 51.20% of the votes, compared to 44.20% for opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, with 80% of the votes counted.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado, for her part, rejected the official results and stated that the "newly elected president" is the candidate from the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), asserting that with over 40% of the transmitted ballots, he obtained 70% of the votes, while Maduro only received 30%.
In recent hours, Venezuela has experienced a climate of increasing instability, marked by protests, the toppling of Chávez statues, and other incidents that reveal the discontent of a significant portion of the citizenry with the electoral outcome.
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