CARACAS, Venezuela – After Venezuela got suspended from South America's Mercosur, foreign ministers from 17 Latin American countries met Tuesday in Peru to discuss the crisis in the oil-rich country.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro also hosted a meeting in Caracas with foreign ministers from 11 Latin American countries. The coalition is known as ALBA, an acronym for the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America.
Recommended Videos
At the center of the discussions was Maduro's new legislative body of 545 delegates. Maduro granted the socialist loyalists, who include his wife and son, power to crush his political enemies and restructure power, after a July 30 election plagued with reports of electoral fraud.
Foreign ministers from Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Chile were among those expressing concern about Maduro's new legislative body. Representatives from Ecuador, Nicaragua, Cuba and Bolivia were among the Latin American countries in support of Maduro.
The U.S. didn't participate in the meeting in Peru. But U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert tweeted Tuesday that Maduro's new all-powerful legislative body, known as the constituent assembly, was "an illegitimate product of a flawed process designed by a dictator."