Plane from US carrying returned migrants lands in Venezuela, foreign minister says

Dec 3 (Reuters) - A plane from the United States carrying 266 Venezuelan migrants landed in Venezuela on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said.

The aircraft, an Eastern Air Lines flight from Phoenix, was cleared to land at Maiquetia, near Caracas, the transportation ministry said on Tuesday, after bilateral flights were briefly suspended amid heightened tensions between the two countries.

Over the weekend, Venezuela said the U.S.' unilateral closure of Venezuelan airspace had ended repatriation flights, but on Tuesday the ministry said it had received a U.S. request to resume them.

Earlier on Wednesday, Gil told reporters at the air terminal that since the beginning of the year, at least 18,354 Venezuelans have arrived in the country on 95 flights, 76 of them directly from the United States. 

(Reporting by Reuters staff)