U.S. blasts Argentina for Chávez rally

Posted on Sat, Mar. 24, 2007

At a trade meeting, a top State Department official scolded Argentina for hosting the Venezuelan president's anti-Bush rally.
BY PABLO BACHELET
pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com

WASHINGTON -- In a rare public rebuke, a top U.S. official has complained about Buenos Aires' decision to let Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez use a stadium to attack President Bush as the U.S. president visited nearby Uruguay.

While Bush pointedly ignored the leftist Chávez on his weeklong tour of Latin America, Nicholas Burns, the State Department's undersecretary of political affairs, unleashed some candid criticism of Argentina Thursday.
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Speaking at the Council of the Americas, a group that promotes more trade and contacts with Latin America, Burns scolded Buenos Aires in his opening remarks while looking at Argentine Ambassador José Octavio Bordón, who was seated on the front row.
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Argentina's foreign minister, Jorge Taiana, in Ecuador on official travel, called Burns' statements ``surprising and unacceptable.''

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