The decision of the Venezuelan government to suspend Copa flights to the country for at least 90 days will hurt  the people of Venezuela more than the Panamanian airline, said  President Juan Carlos Varela on Friday, April 6.

Varela said that the decision, taken Thursday by President Nicolás Maduro affects his "own people", remembering that Panama is a logistics route. It is not possible to continue dividing the Venezuelan people that "pitifully" have had to leave their country due to the humanitarian crisis his nation is going through.

Venezuela canceled Copa Airlines flights on Thursday,  after Panama’s Ministry of Economy and Finance of Panama included President Maduro and other top leaders of the South American country, in a list of people considered a high risk of money laundering, financing of terrorism and financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

In response to the Venezuelan  Government's reaction to the blacklisting Panama withdrew its ambassador in Caracas, while President Maduro called his home for consultation.

Varela said that he does not want to enter into a diplomatic escalation. "What Panama did was to process a list of names to its financial institutions, not take sanctions, "Varela said.

He added that, based on international commitments, this procedure was made public, which produced the annoyance in the Venezuelan Government.

Varela also said that the Venezuelan decision on Thursday was a "political reaction", before an election set for May 20 and "it will not be recognized by many countries. We hope that the reason prevails, but Panama will continue taking more measures in addition to those already announced in the next days or weeks. "

It matched with "our foreign policy", because "we are not going to allow the country to have limited rights such as Panamanian companies cannot transport Venezuelan passengers. "

Copa statement
A statement from Copa Airlines said that with the aim of providing care to its passengers that have scheduled flights to and from Venezuela in the next three months, the company offers the possibility of reimbursing the total value of the tickets without penalties for flights not used. In the same way, passengers who have started their flight may reimburse the unused route without penalties.