MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Kirchner-Chavez strengthen bilateral cooperation.

Argentina and Venezuela underlined Tuesday in Buenos Aires that regional integration and bilateral cooperation are the paths that will lead the great “South American community” away from backwardness and poverty.

The bilateral relation was cemented with the signing by Argentine President Nestor Kirchner and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez of eight agreements covering cooperation in oil production, electricity, the creation of a regional television news agency, Telesur", and trading cattle, beef, pharmaceutical products and medical assistance for Venezuelan heavy fuel.

The oil agreement covers the development of joint business activities between government owned petroleum companies, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and Energia Argentina (ENARSA), in such fields as exploration, production and sale of hydrocarbons.

Enarsa was recently founded by the Kirchner administration with the purpose of recovering energy "autonomy", following serious price and production controversies with foreign oil companies operating in Argentina.

The alliance between the two firms is expected to become the basis for the future founding of Petrosur, a single entity made up of the several South American government owned oil companies, an idea conceived last year during Argentina's serious energy crisis.

The objective of "Telesur" is to cover regional news with a regional vision, free from the influence of "imperialisms" and the economic development "recipes" from the international credit organizations that so "much harm and inequality" have caused in South America.

President Chavez arrived Monday in the Argentine capital from Brazil where he participated in the World Social Forum held in Porto Alegre.

"Latin American unity is the key for sustainable development in times of great inequalities", said President Kirchner underlining the important advances in the bilateral cooperation with Venezuela.

"Fragmentation and fratricidal fighting among our countries has been functional for the proliferation of poverty and inequality in our continent".

President Chavez responded with a forty minutes speech praising South American unity and blasting the "evils of imperialism".

"I accuse the IMF and its neo-liberal policies as the main responsible for the indebtness and miseries of Third World countries", stressed Mr. Chávez adding that "South Americans are beginning to find each other after having lost the course; integration is the road to overcome our problems and promote economic development".

Insisting with the South American community and regional unity the Venezuela president recalled that "we are on the verge of the dilemma anticipated by General Juan Peron when he said that century XXI will find us united or dominated; this great Argentine leader had the same dream and aspiration as our great liberators, Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin who were adamant about South American unity".

After lunch both presidents went to see off the first shipment of 900 dairy cattle for Venezuela and late in the evening they officially opened the first PDVSA-Enarsa gasoline station in downtown Buenos Aires.