Maduro: Venezuela to Continue Cooperation With Iran

Date: 26 September 2020 - 21:53

News ID: ۸۳۲۳۸

CARACAS (Dispatches) -- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has underlined the continuation of his country’s cooperation with Russia, China and Iran as well as other world states in developing national armament systems.
Maduro said during the 15th anniversary of Venezuela’s Strategic Command Operations here Friday that his country plans to manufacture its own weapons and announced the establishment of a special military and scientific council for the purpose.
"We have everything we need to create our own system of weaponry, while continuing cooperation with Russia, China, Cuba, Iran and the entire world,” he said.
"We will continue receiving from them scientific, technological, weapons-related, and of course, strategic assistance, but we must move toward independence,” Maduro added.
Venezuela has maintained years-long relations with both Russia and China, with Moscow being one of the main suppliers of weapons and military technology to Caracas, and China being a purchaser of the Latin American country’s crude oil.
In recent years, Venezuela has also forged warm relationship with Iran.
Venezuela’s oil industry is hobbled by U.S. sanctions which have thrown the country - owner of the world’s largest oil reserves - into its worst economic crisis in years.
And with most shipowners and oil traders shunning business with Venezuela for fear of the sanctions, Iran has emerged as the only country helping Caracas bring its refineries back to service and cope with an acute fuel shortage.
Iran sent five gasoline tankers to
Venezuela in May, easing severe fuel shortages there.
In June, Iran also sent a cargo of food to Venezuela to supply the South American nation’s first Iranian supermarket.
Covering an area of 20,000 square meters, the store is selling more than 2,500 Iranian data-x-items including foodstuff, clothing, detergents, plastic, disposable products, nuts, and even tractors.
The store ushered in a new era of cooperation between Caracas and Tehran, hailed by political observers as a step in breaking the paradigm of US power to subjugate sovereign countries.
Leading American magazine Foreign Policy said last week the U.S. "maximum pressure has not destroyed the Iranian economy, and Tehran is now sharing its lessons in resilience” with the beleaguered Venezuelan government.
"The simple fact that Iran, which has faced a broad campaign of sanctions for more than a decade, has recently come to the aid of Venezuela, which has been under concerted sanctions pressure for only a few years, suggests a remarkable degree of economic resilience. When comparing the two economies, the most salient question is not whether Iran will become like Venezuela, but rather whether Venezuela will become more like Iran,” the U.S. publication said.
On Tuesday, Venezuela pledged to continue trade with Iran after the U.S. announced new sanctions on Iranian officials entities as well as President Maduro.
The Venezuelan foreign ministry said "no intimidating and arrogant action by the US government will prevent it from exercising its sovereign right to establish economic and commercial relations freely with the Islamic Republic of Iran and with any State.”
In a video speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, Maduro called on the international community to rally against unilateral U.S. sanctions and described Washington as the "most serious threat” to global peace and stability.
Last month, President Maduro Maduro thanked Iran for helping his country overcome the U.S. sanctions targeting its oil industry, saying he was also considering purchasing missiles from the Islamic Republic.