09/15/2011

According to Fars News Agency, the mouthpiece of the Iranian revolutionary guards, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is planned to pay an official visit to Venezuela after participating in the 66th UN General Assembly meeting in New York later this month.

“After New York, he’s coming here,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced on Wednesday, without giving any further detail.

Chavez will not attend the General Assembly due to ill health. Having been operated on for cancer in June, he is set to start a fourth round of chemotherapy in the days ahead.

Since taking office in 2005, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has expanded Iran’s cooperation with many Latin American states, including Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador and Brazil.

Chavez’s invitation to Ahmadinejad to pay a visit to Venezuela can exacerbate tensions between Caracas and Washington.

US President Barack Obama hit Venezuela’s state-oil company, PDVSA, with sanctions in May for sending Iran two tankers of an oil-blending component in defiance of what Fars News Agency called United States’ extraterritorial laws.