Venezuela halts thaw with US over envoy Samantha Power's comments

Venezuela said it was stopping the latest round of on-again, off-again efforts to improve relations with the United States in reaction to comments by the Obama administration's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations.

Samantha Power, speaking before a Senate committee on Wednesday, said part of her role as ambassador would be to challenge a "crackdown on civil society" in several countries, including Venezuela.

President Nicolas Maduro had already lashed out on Thursday at Power for her remarks, and late on Friday the foreign ministry said it was terminating efforts to improve relations with the US.

Those efforts had inched forward just last month after Secretary of State John Kerry publicly shook hands with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elmas Jaua during an international meeting in Guatemala.

Venezuela "will never accept interference of any kind in its internal affairs", the ministry said, adding that it "considered terminated the process begun in the conversations in Guatemala that had as their goal the regularisation of our diplomatic relations".

Relations with Venezuela have long been troubled, although the country has remained a major supplier of oil to the US. Under the previous president, Hugo Chavez, relations were bumpy, especially after the Bush administration tacitly supported a coup that briefly ousted him.