Jan. 2 (UPI) -- Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said claims that his government engages in drug trafficking are lies, and he is willing to meet with President Donald Trump amid rising tensions.
Maduro on Thursday accused the Trump administration of knowingly making false claims of drug trafficking, including recent comments by Trump saying Venezuela's alleged drug trafficking is akin to using weapons of mass destruction
"Since they cannot accuse me, since they cannot accuse Venezuela of having weapons of mass destruction, since they cannot accuse us of having nuclear rockets, of preparing a nuclear weapon, of having chemical weapons, they invented an accusation that the United States knows is as false as that accusation of weapons of mass destruction, which led them to an eternal war," Maduro said while referencing the Iraq War.
The Venezuelan president offered to work with U.S. officials to oppose drug trafficking and repeated his prior offers to meet with Trump to discuss the U.S. military targeting alleged drug vessels, seizing oil tankers and blockading Venezuelan ports.
"The U.S. government knows, because we've told many of their spokespeople that, if they want to seriously discuss an agreement to combat drug trafficking, we're ready," he said in a taped interview on Venezuela's state-owned channel teleSUR.
