Trinidad and To­ba­go has again sig­nalled its sup­port for the Unit­ed States fol­low­ing a spe­cial meet­ing of the Per­ma­nent Coun­cil of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS), as re­gion­al ten­sions in­ten­si­fy over the ar­rest of Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro.

The OAS con­vened at its Wash­ing­ton head­quar­ters amid grow­ing con­cern about the im­pli­ca­tions of the U.S. op­er­a­tion, which has raised ques­tions about sov­er­eign­ty, in­ter­na­tion­al law and re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from across the hemi­sphere used the fo­rum to out­line sharply di­ver­gent po­si­tions on the un­fold­ing cri­sis.

Speak­ing on be­half of Trinidad and To­ba­go, in­ter­im OAS rep­re­sen­ta­tive Saschele Grif­fith said the coun­try con­tin­ues to val­ue its long­stand­ing re­la­tion­ships with both Venezuela and the Unit­ed States, while sup­port­ing Wash­ing­ton’s stat­ed ef­forts to com­bat transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime.