CARCAS, July 25. /TASS/. The Venezuelan Armed Forces condemn the actions of the opposition who announced plans to re-join the Inter-American Treaty on Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Treaty), Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said on Wednesday.

"The national armed forces decisively condemn dark intentions of the pro-imperialist political minority which demonstrates its anti-patriotism by demanding to use the Inter-American Treaty on Reciprocal Assistance," Lopez wrote on his official Twitter account.

He added that this treaty is "an instrument of domination and interventionism that goes against independence and sovereignty of peoples."

The Venezuelan parliament controlled by the opposition approved a law on re-joining the Inter-American Treaty on Reciprocal Assistance that allows a signatory to ask other treaty members for military help.

The Inter-American Treaty on Reciprocal Assistance was signed in 1947 in Rio de Janeiro by most Latin American countries. The treaty stipulates that an attack against one signatory is considered as an attack against all other signatories as well. Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua later withdrew from the treaty.