The United States said Thursday that news reports describing Venezuela's alleged links to Colombian rebels are "highly disturbing," adding it had no reason to doubt their legitimacy.
"The picture painted by some of the preliminary reports that I have seen over the last few days is disturbing, highly disturbing," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that senior officials in Venezuela proposed helping the rebels to obtain surface-to-air missiles to pursue their war against the Colombian government.
The newspaper said it had been shown files on computer hard drives seized by Colombian authorities following a raid against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) at a camp in Ecuador in March.
The Post said that Colombian officials told it they had no evidence that the rebels obtained the missiles.
"There are serious allegations about Venezuela supplying arms and support to a terrorist organization," McCormack told reporters. "Certainly that has deep implications for the people of the region as well as states in the region."
McCormack said the United States was conducting its own analysis on the files which it had access to.
But he added: "Since they (the Colombians) are the originators of this material, it's only proper that they talk about it first. I'm sure that at some point we'll have more to say about it."
Asked if Washington believed the information was legitimate, he replied: "We have no reason to question at this point the legitimacy of the information."
