Caracas, May 15 (RHC)-- Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza summoned the UK’s top diplomat in Caracas on Thursday “to present a formal protest and demand explanations” for the creation of a “Venezuela Reconstruction Unit” in the British Embassy.

“We summon the Charge d'Affaires of the United Kingdom to present a formal protest and demand explanations for the creation in his Chancellery of a Unit for the Reconstruction of Venezuela,” Arreaza said in a Twitter post on Thursday, accusing UK Deputy Ambassador to Venezuela Duncan Hill of trying to “justify the unjustifiable.”

​“We demand that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland withdraw from Washington's coup plans and from any destabilizing initiative,” Arreaza continued.  “We demand respect for our sovereignty, for our people and for the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.”

Arreaza’s comments come a day after a damning expose by The Canary, which revealed the existence of the “Venezuela Reconstruction Unit,” as well as the extent of cooperation between the British government and Venezuelan opposition figure Juan Guaido, who has been held up by the United States, the UK and other European governments as the legitimate leader of Venezuela instead of democratically-elected President Nicolas Maduro.

Documents obtained by Canary writer John McEvoy via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) included a list of figures who attended January 2020 meetings between Guaido and UK Foreign Minister Dominic Raab.

“Notably, the list also includes ‘Head [of the] Venezuela Reconstruction Unit, FCO’, John Saville.  The existence of this unit has never been publicly acknowledged by either the FCO [Foreign & Commonwealth Office] or Saville, who was formerly UK ambassador to Venezuela (2014-2017). Saville’s biography on the UK government’s website, for instance, bears no mention of the unit,” McEvoy wrote.