The United States will withdraw all remaining diplomatic personnel from Venezuela this week, the US State Department said late on Monday, citing the deteriorating situation in the country after months of political unrest. It followed Washington's Jan. 24 decision to withdraw all dependents and reduce embassy staff to a minimum in the South American country hit by unrest over a contested presidential election. "This decision reflects the deteriorating situation in Venezuela as well as the conclusion that the presence of US diplomatic staff at the embassy has become a constraint on US policy," the State Department said in a statement. It did not give more details or set a day for when personnel would be withdrawn from the embassy in Caracas. Venezuela's congress on Monday declared a "state of alarm" over a five-day power blackout that has crippled the OPEC nation's oil exports and left millions of citizens scrambling to find food and water. Venezuela also suspended school and business activities on Tuesday due to the power blackout, Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said in a televised broadcast on Monday, the third such cancellation since power went out last week. The outage has added to discontent in a country already suffering from hyperinflation and a political crisis after opposition leader Juan Guaido assumed the interim presidency in January after declaring President Nicolas Maduro's 2018 re-election a fraud. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday blamed Russia and Cuba for causing Venezuela's political crisis by supporting President Maduro and said he had urged India not to help Maduro's government by buying Venezuelan oil. His comments came after the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Russian bank Evrofinance Mosnarbank for helping Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA evade US financial restrictions. "This story is not complete without acknowledging the central role Cuba and Russia have played and continue to play in undermining the democratic dreams of the Venezuelan people and their welfare," Pompeo told reporters. "Moscow, like Havana, continues to provide political cover to the Maduro regime, while pressuring countries to disregard the democratic legitimacy of the interim president Guaido," he added. Pompeo met with India's Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale on Monday and they discussed India's purchases of oil from Maduro's government. "We are asking the same thing of India as we are of every country: do not be the economic lifeline for the Maduro regime," Pompeo said. "I am very confident in the same way that India has been incredibly supportive of our efforts on Iran, I am confident that they too understand the real threat to the Venezuelan people," he added. Pompeo said Russian oil giant Rosneft was also defying US sanctions by buying oil from PDVSA, which was sanctioned in January. "Russia's state-owned company, Rosneft, continues to purchase crude oil cargoes from PDVSA, Venezuela's state-owned oil company, in defiance of US sanctions. And, Rosneft's CEO, Igor Sechin, continues to throw a lifeline to the regime," he said. Rosneft, which is involved in upstream projects in Venezuela and is receiving oil from PDVSA under pre-payment deals from past years, called Pompeo's statements "groundless accusations". "Rosneft is not involved in the politics and is conducting purely commercial activities," it said on Tuesday. "Rosneft activities in Venezuela... and oil supplies are conducted according to the international laws and existing... contracts." Washington has called on foreign banks to ensure that Maduro and Venezuelan government officials are not hiding financial assets abroad. The US Treasury said that all U.S. assets of Evrofinance, described as jointly-owned by Russian and Venezuelan state-owned companies, would be frozen and US citizens prohibited from doing business with it. "Bankers: Do not help Maduro and his accomplices steal the assets of the Venezuelan people," US national security adviser John Bolton wrote on Twitter on Monday. "The United States is watching. The world is watching. The Venezuelan people are watching. — Reuters
