Instead of Lithuania Lukashenka to fly to Venezuela
- 12.03.2010, 9:07
It is expected that the Belarusian dictator with his delegation is to go on the official visit to Venezuela on March 16-17.
The visit is made to “start new mutually beneficial prospects of cooperation to the good of Venezuelan and Belarusian nations”, stated Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Nicholas Maduro at the opening of the working meeting of Venezuelan-Belarusian high-level commission which finishes preparations to the visit of the Belarusian ruler.
“Venezuela is to become the first country in Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s visit to Latin America,” the head of the Foreign Ministry noted, not specifying which other states of the region to be visited by the Belarusian president, ITAR-TASS informs.
The Belarusian delegation headed by the first deputy Prime Minister Uladzimir Syamashka is to participate in the work of the two-week session of the joint commission. The delegation includes Lukashenka’s aide for special commissions, ex-Secretary of the Security Council Viktar Sheiman, leaders and high-ranking officials of ministries and agencies.
“Today and tomorrow we are to define new approaches for realization of projects of mutual interest, exchange opinions on new priority directions of bilateral cooperation, set aims for the future,” Syamashka noted.
He underlined that “the commission is to do everything possible for our presidents in Karakas in a few days to have a clear picture of the state of joint projects and outlined mutually beneficial prospects of cooperation for the good of Venezuelan and Belarusian people”.
Elías Jaua, Vice President of Venezuela, welcomed the Belarusian delegation on behalf of “comandante, President Hugo Chavez, the government and the Venezuelan nation”. He noted that “cooperation with Belarus in the sphere of energy, in civil construction agriculture, industry, science and engineering, education and culture, has become an important factor in strengthening friendship between the two countries”.
In recent years Lukashenka and Chavez many times Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Hugo Chavez many times stated their friendship and exchanges visits. It will be the fourth visit of Hugo Chavez to Belarus: his previous visits took place in 2006, 2007 and 2008. In December 2007 an official visit of Lukashenka to Venezuela took place.
One of the main interests of Belarus in Venezuela is participation in development of oil fields. Recently Lukashenka confirmed that Minsk plans to continue to look for ways to buy energy resources alternative to Russia, which includes Venezuela.
Spanish El Pais published an article informing that Venezuela was going to sell arms to rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) with the help of Belarus.
Interpol experts confirmed identity of the documents showing financial relations between Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, the Belarusian government and the terrorist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
We remind that on March 11 Lukashenka was invited by Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite to Vilnius to celebrations dedicated to the 20th anniversary of restoration of Lithuanian independence, however the Belarusian dictator refused to visit the event.