BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

09/12/2007

Venezuela-Belarus cooperation-of friendly nature-Chavez

CARACAS, December 9 (Itar-Tass) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that all-round cooperation between his country and Belarus is of friendly and mutually advantageous nature.

Concluded agreements on cooperation in various spheres, including trade and economy, are based on principles of mutual aid, he stressed at a signing ceremony of bilateral documents by the results of the visit of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, which ended on Saturday.

Chavez paid special attention to implementing Venezuelan-Belarussian projects in the oil industry. The president emphasised that on shouldering off the US sway, Venezuela now disposes of its own oil resources independently. "These riches were enjoyed only by the US for nearly a century," the Venezuelan leader said.

Venezuela has become a free country and is ready to share its oil resources with its friends, he continued.

The Petroleos de Venezuela state-owned oil corporation and the Belarusneft Company formed a joint venture and started oil production, in the presence of the two presidents, at the Guara Este deposit in the Ansoategi State. The sides plan to extract 18,000 barrels of oil daily at the deposit.

Besides, the two countries concluded an agreement on Belarus' participation in quantitative appraisal and international certification of oil in the Junin-1 block of the oil-bearing belt in the Orinoco River basin where according to preliminary data, there are 235 billion barrels of heavy and extra heavy oil.

Chavez said that "nobody could imagine a decade ago that Alexander Lukashenko will be at a Venezuelan oil-field" when Venezuela's foreign policy was dictated from Washington. He emphasised that the transnational mass media which "try to manipulate peoples", launched a false propaganda campaign against the leaders of the two states.

"Lukashenko is called the last European dictator, while Chavez is called the last Latin American dictator. We shall turn from the last into the first, since we stand at the head of liberation process, destroying paradigms of neo-liberalism." The president stressed that Venezuela and Belarus implement their own national development projects.

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=12161910&PageNum=0