Russia and Venezuela’s leaders on Wednesday vowed closer cooperation to establish what they called a “multi-polar” world, ahead of naval exercises seen as sending a defiant signal to the US.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev defended Russia’s arms sales to Venezuela — criticized by the US and Colombia as potentially destabilizing — and said military cooperation with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez would continue.
Russian military cooperation with Venezuela “is not a market relationship or aimed at any other state but is based on partnership ... It should strengthen multi-polarity in the world including in South America and Latin America,” Medvedev said.
“We will develop our military cooperation,” he said.
Chavez said US “hegemony” was the source of global “catastrophes” after he greeted Medvedev at a ceremony featuring scarlet-clad soldiers carrying spears, in a courtyard decorated with palm trees, fountains and statues of ancient gods and dolphins.
“We should fight to make a world of catastrophes caused by hegemony and unilateralism a thing of the past,” said Chavez, going on to denounce what he called the “dictatorship of the dollar” and announcing efforts to move away from dollar transactions in trade with Russia.
On the commercial front the two countries signed a cooperation agreement in the civilian atomic energy sector.
The head of Russian atomic energy corporation, Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, said Venezuela had the right to peaceful nuclear energy and had given no cause for “questions” about its fitness for nuclear energy.
Officials also signed an agreement on cooperation in the fossil fuel sector, aimed at stepping up existing exploration projects in Venezuela by companies such as Gazprom.
Medvedev and Chavez went on to dine with leaders of several South and Central American countries, some of which have formed an economic group meant to counter-balance US influence.
Medvedev was to visit Russian warships yesterday that arrived in Venezuela earlier this week to carry out exercises in the Caribbean Sea, close to US waters.
Medvedev’s visit was part of a tour aimed at revitalizing Cold War-era ties with left-leaning countries of Latin America and was seen as aimed at rebuffing US moves in formally communist parts of Europe such as planned missile defense facilities.
Medvedev earlier visited Brazil, which announced it would buy 12 attack helicopters from Russia.
The arrival in Venezuela of the Russian warships led by a nuclear-powered cruiser has been portrayed by Russian media as mirroring US deployments in the Black Sea in support of Moscow’s adversary, Georgia.
Russian officials have repeatedly denied the exercises are aimed at “third countries” and Venezuela’s president rejected talk of provocation on Monday, describing the exercises as an exchange between “free, sovereign countries.”
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the arrival of Russian ships could hardly reflect a change in the regional power balance.
“A few Russian ships is not going to change the balance of power,” she said.
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