UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called for respect of nations’ political independence following a US military operation in Venezuela that Washington defended as a police action against Caracas’s “fugitive” leader. UN chief urges ‘respect’ for sovereignty at Venezuela emergency meeting US forces seized Nicolas Maduro and his wife over the weekend, bringing to an end 12 years of increasingly authoritarian rule by the left-wing leader, whom Washington accused of running a cartel and targeted with a $50 million bounty. Guterres urges “respect for the principles of sovereignty, political independence and territorial integrity of states,” according to remarks read on his behalf by Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo during an emergency UN Security Council meeting on the crisis. “I am deeply concerned about the possible intensification instability in the country, the potential impact on the region, and the precedent it may set for how relations between and among states are conducted,” the UN chief’s remarks said. Colombia a new member of the Security Council that formally requested the meeting, and whose leader Gustavo Petro has clashed with …