US envoy warns Maduro of global pressure if political opponents are imprisoned.

WASHINGTON: A US envoy warned Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro that he risks a major escalation of international pressure if authorities arrest leaders of the opposition, which Washington believes won July 28 elections.

If opposition leader Maria Corina Machado or presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia were detained, “I think that would be a step that could mobilise the international community even more, even those that might be somewhat sympathetic and don’t want to rattle things too much in Venezuela,” said Francisco Mora, the US ambassador to the Organisation of American States.

“If Maduro decided to do this, this will bring the international community in ways that he could not imagine, and his efforts to fracture and divide the international community, I think, would have failed wholeheartedly,” Mora said at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.

He said that the United States would be expected to move for a stronger resolution at the OAS if Maduro arrested his opponents.

The United States and a number of other countries believe that Gonzalez Urrutia won the election and have pressed authorities to release detailed election data.