CARACAS (Reuters) -Venezuela’s government said on Monday it will close its embassies in Norway and Australia and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe as part of a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the U.S.
The closures are part of the “strategic re-assignation of resources,” President Nicolas Maduro’s government said in a statement, adding that consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia would be provided by diplomatic missions, with details to be shared in coming days.
Caracas said it was setting up new embassies in “two sister nations, strategic allies in the anti-colonial fight and in the resistance against hegemonic pressures.”
It added that these new embassies would serve to launch joint projects involving agriculture, energy, education, mining and other common interests.
The announcement occurred just days after the Nobel Committee in Oslo announced that Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado had won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for fighting dictatorship in the South American country.
The embassy closures with the two U.S. allies also followed weeks of escalating tensions between Caracas and Washington.
Venezuela has called on the United Nations for support over several deadly U.S. military strikes on vessels off its Caribbean coast, which Washington alleges were carrying drugs. Some U.S. allies on the U.N. Security Council called for de-escalation and dialogue.
Venezuela has said it is in a situation where it is rational to expect an armed attack against the country in the short-term, and Maduro has alleged the U.S. is seeking a change in government.
Washington has not responded to this accusation, but has called Venezuela’s socialist leader the illegitimate head of a narco-state. The U.S. also has announced a new counter-narcotics task force in its Southern Command, a military branch that oversees Latin America.
The governments of Zimbabwe and Burkina Faso are more aligned with that of Russia, which has supported Venezuela at the U.N. and accused the U.S. of acting according to “the cowboy principle of ‘shoot first.'”
(Reporting by Vivian Sequera and Deisy Buitrago in Caracas; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle and Paul Simao)
