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22:37 GMT
The US President Donald Trump
WASHINGTON, Jan 4 (KUNA) -- The US President Donald Trump threatened on Sunday Venezuela's new leader of paying a heavy price and facing a grimmer fate than her predecessor if she does not comply with the US demands.
"If she doesn't do what's right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro," the US leader said in an interview with the Atlantic magazine.
He was referring to the former Venezuelan president Nicol?s Maduro whom the US forces captured on Saturday and is now residing in a New York City jail cell.
President Trump said he would not accept Rodr?guez's rejection of the US military intervention in her country.
The Venezuelan supreme court appointed the former vice-president Rodr?guez as an interim president Sunday after the US arrest of the country's president Maduro a day earlier.
Later, Rodr?guez called for the release of the captured president and vowed to confront the US intervention and to defend her country's natural resources.
"We shall never be a colony ever again," she stressed.
Rodr?guez's defiant stance and strong words contradicted with US President Trump's claims on Saturday that she had privately indicated a willingness to work with the United States.
"She's essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again," President said about Rodriguez on Saturday.
The Atlantic warned that Rodr?guez's rejection of the US intervention could raise the risk of a protracted fight for control of Venezuela that would require increased US-military involvement and even occupation.
Furthermore, President Trump hinted that Venezuela may not be the last country that faces American intervention.
"We do need Greenland, absolutely," he said, describing the island-a part of Denmark, a NATO ally-as "surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said yesterday that the world should take notice after the Venezuela operation. "When he tells you that he's going to do something, when he tells you he's going to address a problem, he means it," Rubio said.
When asked whether the intervention on Venezuela could indicate a willingness to take military action to seize control of Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, which has rejected American territorial claims, President Trump said it was up to others to decide what US-military action in Venezuela means for Greenland.
"They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don't know. He was very generous to me, Marco, yesterday," Trump said.
"You know, I wasn't referring to Greenland at that time. But we do need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defense." (end)
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