CARACAS, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday that he had ordered F-16 jets to intercept a U.S. military plane that twice violated Venezuelan airspace earlier in the day.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting, Chavez said that the U.S. plane, based on the Netherlands’ Curacao island in the Caribbean, intruded into Venezuelan airspace twice, the first for 15 minutes and the second 19 minutes.
The F-16s escorted the U.S. plane out, he added.
However, the U.S. military denied that any of its planes entered Venezuelan airspace on Friday.
“As a matter of policy we do not fly over a nation’s air space without prior consent and coordination,” the U.S. Southern Command, which is in charge of U.S. military activities in the hemisphere, said in a statement. “We operate with the utmost respect for the sovereignty of the nations in our hemisphere.
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