UPDATE - Maduro was ready to leave Venezuela: Pompeo

ADDS DETAILS THROUGHOUT

By Umar Farooq

WASHINGTON (AA) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was ready to leave the country, but Russia convinced him to stay.

"It’s been a long time since anyone has seen Maduro. He had an airplane on the tarmac. He was ready to leave this morning, as we understand it, and the Russians indicated he should stay," Pompeo said in an interview with CNN.

"We know that there were senior leaders inside the Maduro government that were prepared to leave," he added.

The U.S. has thrown its full support behind an ongoing military uprising aimed at ousting Maduro from power led by opposition leader Juan Guaido.

Tensions in Venezuela have escalated since Guaido, who heads Venezuela’s National Assembly, declared himself acting president on Jan. 23, a move which was supported by the U.S. and many European and Latin American countries.

Guaido published a video earlier Tuesday alongside a small contingent of uniformed military personnel and armored vehicles in which he called for an uprising to end the "usurpation" of Maduro.

He stressed that this was the beginning of the final phase of the effort to oust Maduro, known as “Operacion Libertad”, or Operation Liberty.

"We’ve made clear that all along, Maduro has been surrounded by Cubans and has been supported by Russians there in Venezuela," Pompeo said.

Venezuela has been in the throes of humanitarian and economic crises amid the political deadlock between Guaido and Maduro as Washington has ramped up diplomatic and economic pressure on the Venezuelan president in a bid to get him to relinquish power, including sanctioning his state-run oil company.

Pompeo added that "all options are on the table" when it comes to the U.S. response to the situation in Caracas, including a military option.

"I don’t think anyone should be fooled that if the president makes the decision, if he chooses a military option, that the United States military has the capacity to execute that option," he said.

"We’re convinced the Venezuelan people are going to get their democracy back.”