Embassy Row

IRANIAN PLOTS IN LATIN AMERICA

The head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is urging President Obama to be more aggressive against suspected Iranian conspiracies, as a Venezuelan diplomat implicated in an Iranian cyberplot against the U.S. was due to leave Miami on Tuesday.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen applauded the State Department’s decision to expel Livia Acosta, Venezuela’s consul-general in Miami, but called for more “proactive” measures against Iranian infiltration in Latin America, where the Iranian president is now on a multi-nation tour.

“This is the appropriate step to take against the Venezuelan consul-general in Miami and highlights the threat posed by Iranian influence in Latin America,” the Florida Republican said this week.

“While I am pleased that this was done, we must increase our efforts to counter Iranian plots in the Western Hemisphere. … This administration must be more proactive and engaged against the serious threat of Iranian activity in the region ….”

Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen noted that the State Department expelled the Venezuelan diplomat after she and other members of Congress called for an investigation into a news documentary by Univision.

The Spanish-language television station reported last month that Ms. Acosta was involved in discussions in 2007 with Iranian and Cuban diplomats about a plot to hack into computers at U.S. nuclear power plants. At the time, she was serving at the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico City.

The State Department declared Ms. Acosta “persona non-grata,” literally an “unwelcomed person.” The status is the most serious censure a host country can impose on a foreign diplomat.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Monday declined to give details about the expulsion of Ms. Acosta, except to say she was ordered to leave the country by Tuesday.

“But I will tell you that we do not take it lightly when we declare somebody persona non-grata,” Mrs. Nuland told reporters.

In Caracas on Monday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced the United States for what he called the “unfair and arbitrary” action against Ms. Acosta.

“This is just one more sign of the overbearing nature of a ridiculous imperial power,” he said, after meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who also is scheduled to visit Cuba and Ecuador.

Mr. Chavez’s foreign minister, Nicolas Maduro, said Venezuela is preparing a “firm and timely response.”

The United States and Venezuela have been locked in a high-level diplomatic dispute since the summer of 2008, when Venezuela expelled U.S. Ambassador Patrick Duddy and recalled Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez from Washington after the George W. Bush administration accused Mr. Chavez of aiding communist rebels trying to overthrow the pro-American government in Colombia.

Since then, both embassies have been run by senior diplomats below the rank of ambassador.

WARNING SPAIN OVER PIRACY

Before he left office last month, former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero faced a frustrated U.S. ambassador who warned him that Washington might slap his government with economic sanctions over his failure to outlaw Internet piracy.

Ambassador Alan Solomont also accused the former socialist party leader of caving to political opposition to an Internet bill that would protect U.S. and other foreign copyrights from illegal computer downloading.

“The government has unfortunately failed to finish the job out of political reasons to the detriment of Spain’s reputation and economy,” the ambassador said in the letter to Mr. Zapatero that was leaked last week to the El Pais newspaper in Madrid.

Mr. Zapatero lost power in the November parliamentary elections, and the new conservative government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy adopted the measure after his government took office in mid-December.

• Call Embassy Row at 202/636-3297 or email jmorrison@washingtontimes.com. The column is published on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.