TEHRAN -- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has announced that he will soon visit Iran at the invitation of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to work on furthering cooperation between their two countries.
The visit will come as part of Venezuela’s plan to revive ties with the Mideast countries in the coming year, he said.
“I am going to Teheran very soon, for a visit that President Raisi offered me, so that we meet in person, to hold conversations and sign new agreements,” Maduro said, he said in an interview with Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen broadcaster. The interview was also broadcast on Venezuelan state television.
He did not give a date for the visit. The two presidents have held two telephone conversations during which they agreed on new plans, Maduro said. The aim will be to “speed up processes of cooperation,” he said.
He explained that joint commissions are working on the new projects, adding that he will soon visit Iran to finalize the new deals.
Maduro said his South American country’s relations with the Islamic Republic have always been really good.
Maduro’s government has received vital equipment for its oil industry from Iran, which in return has received crude and other primary resources from the South American country. Iran has been crucial for Venezuela’s rising oil production in 2021.
During the interview Maduro also heaped praise on Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, saying he admires the Leader of the Islamic Revolution as “a man of great wisdom and great intelligence.”
Speaking of planned efforts in 2022 to improve partnership with other countries in the broader Middle East, Maduro said, “They love us in the Arab world, I know that Arab governments and peoples love Venezuela.”
Venezuela is under stiff U.S. sanctions that have impacted the country’s crude oil exports. The Trump administration shuttered the American embassy in Caracas in March 2019 after recognizing opposition

leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate leader even though he had not won any election. Ever since, relations between the two countries have grown steadily more hostile, with the U.S. government imposing strict oil sanctions on the country and targeting top officials with criminal indictments, something Maduro has likened to a “soft coup.”
The tightening of U.S. sanctions since 2019 has affected Venezuela’s ability to sell crude and import fuel, which has exacerbated gasoline shortages across the country.
The U.S. has also imposed sanctions on Iran in a standoff with Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which have affected the lives of the ordinary Iranians.
Earlier this year an Iranian destroyer and support vessel sailed into the Atlantic Ocean, with U.S. media reports citing anonymous American officials as saying the ships were bound for Venezuela.
Maduro also said the international community must strongly condemn the 2020 assassination of top anti-terror Iranian commander General Qassem Soleimani by the U.S., which he denounced as a horrific crime.
“Is this really a world we want, where the White House issues an order to kill a hero of the struggle against terrorism in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon?” Maduro asked.
General Soleimani was assassinated at Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020, in a drone strike directly ordered by former U.S. president Donald Trump.
“General Soleimani was a smiling and optimistic man. I thank God for ever meeting him,” the Venezuelan president said, recalling that Gen. Soleimani visited Caracas sometime between March and April 2019.
“We were in the midst of an electricity crisis orchestrated by imperialists against Venezuela’s national electrical power grid. We had conversations on several areas of cooperation, including electricity,” he said, stressing that all matters discussed were later put into action.
“He fought terrorism and savage criminals, who attacked ordinary people and the Axis of Resistance. He was a brave man,” Maduro said.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Maduro said his country will never abandon the Palestinian cause, calling on the international community and world states not to leave Palestinians unprotected in the face of the Israeli regime’s crimes against them.
He said no one in the world can force Caracas into withdrawing support from the Palestinian issue.
“We will not yield to such demands. It is a sin to simply think of abandoning Palestine or leaving it by itself. Palestine is humanity’s Holy Land, and we hold Palestinian lands in such high regard. We hear the name ‘Palestine’ loud and high.”
Maduro said also denounced the ongoing heinous crimes against Palestinians across the occupied territories, emphasizing that Israel will pay for them one day.
“We wish Palestine well. We have cooperation agreements with it, and the agreements are going very well. We would like to give more for Palestine,” he said, calling on the international community, world states, and Arab and Muslim leaders not to leave Palestine alone.
He added that Palestine deserves unwavering and fearless support from all world leaders, noting, “Palestine is crying out for help. Palestine is asking for your support. Crimes are being committed against it every day, and its young people are getting killed every day.”
The Venezuelan leader described Israeli crimes against Palestinians as “inexplicable” and unmatched in history, reiterating his country’s deep-seated support and affection for Palestinian people.

Syria Will Rise Again With Assad

Maduro also expressed support for Syria, stating that he is confident the Arab country will finally overcome the existing conflict under President Bashar al-Assad.
“The Arab world and the entire international community will be astonished at how Syria will rise from the ashes in the following years,” he said.
Maduro said the Syrian nation has suffered a lot as a result of the decade-long foreign-sponsored militancy, predicting that Syrian government forces, together with the Syrian people and leadership, will eventually fully liberate the occupied territories from the clutches of terrorist groups.