The Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al has ex­pressed deep alarm over the lat­est es­ca­la­tion in Venezuela, warn­ing that the Unit­ed States’ mil­i­tary ac­tion in the coun­try could have se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions for the wider re­gion.

In a state­ment is­sued by his spokesper­son, Stéphane Du­jar­ric, to­day, the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al said the de­vel­op­ments went be­yond the im­me­di­ate sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela and risked es­tab­lish­ing a “dan­ger­ous prece­dent” in in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs.

The UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al un­der­scored the im­por­tance of full re­spect for in­ter­na­tion­al law, in­clud­ing the UN Char­ter, stress­ing that all states are bound by its prin­ci­ples. He said he was deeply con­cerned that the rules of in­ter­na­tion­al law may not have been re­spect­ed in the course of the re­cent mil­i­tary ac­tion.