Maduro rejects Madrid's interference in Venezuela's internal affairs

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Wednesday night the "Spanish elite" that governs Madrid has a "plan" to attack his administration to affect the outcome of this month's elections in that European nation.

"From Spain, the political and economic elite that governs that country has a plan to attack us during this month. I want to have good relations with (Mariano) Rajoy's government but I can't allow anyone, regardless of their political position, to attack Venezuela," said Maduro in a televised broadcast.

The president added that Madrid is using alleged links between Venezuela's socialist government and Spanish left-wing political parties to discredit them for the upcoming elections.

"In a very clumsy way the Spanish government is putting political, diplomatic, economic, energetic and all types of ties between our countries at risk," he added.

"I don't want any more conflicts, stop the aggressions and media campaigns against our country and political system," he said.

Former Spanish prime minister, Felipe Gonzalez, a long-time adversary of the Venezuelan government, is set to travel to Caracas later this month and that has sparked once again a scuffle between the two countries.

Gonzalez will allegedly advise the legal team of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who was imprisoned in February 2014 on charges of crimes related to violence that erupted following a nation-wide protest movement seeking to topple Maduro. The Venezuelan parliament has declared Gonzalez a persona non grata.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Garcia Margallo warned on Wednesday that if Maduro's government denies Gonzalez the entry, there will have "serious repercussions around the world and the region."

The two countries' governments were locked in barbs trading this year after Madrid's insistence that alleged political prisoners, like Lopez and Caracas' metropolitan mayor, Antonio Ledezma, be freed. Endi