Thursday , 28 March 2024

Venezuela’s Maduro plans to visit Iran ‘very soon’

Al-Monitor – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says he plans to visit Iran to forge new cooperation agreements between Tehran and Caracas. 

“I am going to Tehran very soon for a visit that President [Ebrahim] Raisi offered me so that we meet in person to hold conversations and sign new agreements … and speed up processes of cooperation,” Maduro told Al Mayadeen during a Spanish-language interview Sunday. 

In October, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Felix Plasencia announced that a 20-year cooperation agreement between the two countries would be finalized during Maduro’s upcoming trip to Iran. 

Maduro did not say when he planned to visit, only that he and Raisi had agreed on plans during two phone calls. Venezuela’s socialist leader also told the pan-Arab broadcaster that he plans to strengthen ties with other Middle East countries in 2022. 

“They love us in the Arab world. I know that Arab governments and peoples love Venezuela,” Maduro said. 

Both Iran and Venezuela have sought to evade crippling US sanctions on their oil industries. In 2020, the US Department of Justice announced the seizure of 1.1 million barrels of Iranian petroleum confiscated while en route to fuel-starved Venezuela. In June, an Iranian destroyer and support vessel were spotted sailing in the Atlantic Ocean in the direction of the South American country before changing course.

On Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Iranian negotiators will make Iran’s sanctions-ravaged oil industry a focus of the current nuclear talks in Vienna. The most important issue on the table, he said, is reaching the “point where Iranian oil is being sold easily and without any barriers and its money arrives in Iran’s bank accounts.”

Talks aimed at restoring the landmark nuclear agreement resumed late last month in the Austrian capital after a five-month hiatus. Raisi’s government has demanded the removal of all US sanctions before Iran resumes compliance under the deal. 

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