Venezuela’s gov­ern­ment has called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to tone down the dead­ly force rhetoric she used against their coun­try and her crit­i­cism of Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro.

In a com­mu­nique is­sued yes­ter­day, the Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion de­scribed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­sponse as “irate and un­jus­ti­fied.” It said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­ac­tion could dam­age co­op­er­a­tion be­tween both coun­tries.

“The Prime Min­is­ter’s vir­u­lent and high-hand­ed at­ti­tude rais­es se­ri­ous sus­pi­cions of com­plic­i­ty ... and un­der­mines the good co­op­er­a­tive re­la­tions be­tween our coun­tries in key ar­eas,” the state­ment said.