(cnn)venezuela has given the us embassy in caracas 15 days to downsize its staff from 100 personnel to 17 'with respect to bringing the number of staff at the us embassy in venezuela to 17, a period of 15 days will be given to decide which staff will stay in our country,' said venezuela's foreign minister delcy rodriguez on monday venezuela's official news agency avn (agencia venezolana de noticias) said the us embassy has been asked to reduce its personnel to a staff of 17 to match the number of venezuelan personnel working in their embassy in the united states last month, the us government approved a law under which venezuelan officials allegedly involved in human rights violations are to have their visas revoked and their us assets frozen following that decision, venezuelan president nicolas maduro announced that that americans will need visas to visit venezuela moreover, a group of prominent us officials, current and retired, will be banned from entering venezuela because of what maduro said was their involvement in 'bombing iraq, syria and vietnam' and other 'terrorist' actions the officials include george w bush, former us vice president dick cheney, former cia director george tenet and several current members of congress, including ileana ros lehtinen, bob menendez and mario diaz balart on saturday, maduro also said an unspecified number of americans were arrested 'a few days ago' for engaging in espionage and recruitment activities the president said they included an american pilot of latin american origin, arrested in the southwest border state of táchira he said the pilot was found in possession of 'all kinds of documents' and was being interrogated by the authorities, though he did not identify him the venezuelan government has made many similar claims in recent years, without ever substantiating them 'there have been a lot of anti american rhetoric again coming out of the venezuelan government with a lot of baseless allegations,' said us state department spokeswoman marie harf on monday
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