GENEVA – The U.S. ambassador to the U.N.’s main disarmament body has walked out of its current session in Geneva to protest that Venezuela has taken the chair.
Robert Wood insisted “a rogue state” was taking over, shortly after Venezuelan Ambassador Jorge Valero became president of the Conference on Disarmament.
Wood said that nothing that comes out of the current session would be legitimate. He said Tuesday that some members of the so-called Lima Group of countries from Latin America had also decided not to take part.
The U.S. and other countries have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s president, but Nicolás Maduro remains in power.
Venezuela’s four-week turn as the conference’s president follows a regular rotation by alphabetical order. The previous president was the United States.