Washington, DC [US], January 29 (ANI): US Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the capture of former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro before a Senate committee, arguing that the operation did not amount to an act of war and portraying it as a strategic necessity for the Trump administration.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, Rubio laid out Washington's rationale behind the January 3 capture of Maduro, who remains detained in New York while facing drug trafficking and narco-terrorism conspiracy charges.

At the outset of the hearing, Rubio characterised the operation as a 'strategic' move and dismissed concerns raised by United Nations experts over international law. He described Venezuela under Maduro as a 'base of operation for virtually every competitor, adversary and enemy in the world', citing alleged links to Iran, Russia and Cuba. '[Having Maduro in power] was an enormous strategic risk for the United States, not halfway around the world, not on another continent, but in the hemisphere in which we all live, and it was having dramatic impacts on us, but also on Colombia and on the Caribbean Basin and all sorts of other places,' Rubio told lawmakers.

'It was an untenable situation, and it had to be addressed, and now the question becomes what happens moving forward,' he said.

Rubio said Washington had three objectives in Venezuela, culminating in 'a phase of transition where we are left with a friendly, stable, prosperous Venezuela - and democratic'.

He also defended US President Donald Trump's decision to continue engaging with officials surrounding Maduro, including interim President Delcy Rodriguez, rather than immediately backing an opposition takeover.

According to Rubio, the first priority was preventing civil war while seeking to 'establish direct, honest, respectful, but very direct and honest conversations with the people who today control the elements of that nation'.

He added that the second objective focused on a 'period of recovery ... and that is the phase in which you want to see a normalised oil industry'.

During the hearing, Senator Jeanne Shaheen raised concerns about the cost of the operation, citing outside estimates that put the military action and ongoing naval blockade at 1 billion.

'So it's no wonder that so many of my constituents are asking why the president is spending so much time focused on Venezuela instead of the cost of living and their kitchen table economic concerns?'

Republican Senator Rand Paul directly questioned whether the operation amounted to war. Rubio responded, 'We just don't believe that this operation comes anywhere close to the constitutional definition of war,' pointing to Maduro's contested 2024 election and US indictments tied to drug trafficking.

Paul dismissed Rubio's reasoning as 'empty'.

Despite an ongoing blockade on sanctioned oil tankers and a continued US military presence in the region, Rubio sought to downplay the prospect of further action.

'We are not postured and do not expect to take military action,' Rubio said, while stopping short of ruling out future strikes to protect US interests.

Rubio also detailed plans related to Venezuela's oil sector, saying Washington and Caracas reached an agreement under which 'on the oil that is sanctioned and quarantined, we will allow you to move it to market... In return, the funds from that will be deposited into an account that we will have oversight over, and you will spend that money for the benefit of the Venezuelan people.'

He described the arrangement as a 'short-term mechanism'.

'And so we have created that, we hope to do is transition to a mechanism that allows that to be sold in a normal way, a normal oil industry, not one dominated by cronies, not one dominated by graft and corruption,' Rubio added.

He also welcomed a law passed by Venezuela's legislature opening the oil sector to greater international access, as Trump continues to push for expanded opportunities for US companies following Maduro's capture. (ANI)