MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chavez promotes Mercosur “regional integration axis”

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez arrived Thursday in Buenos Aires for talks with his counterpart Nestor Kirchner and is scheduled to hold a two hours meeting in Montevideo on Friday with President Tabare Vazquez before leaving for Bolivia.

The non official tour of Mercosur partners by President Chavez, less than a week after his re-election landslide victory, began in Brazil with Lula da Silva, who also gained another four years period in the late October run-off.

"Our objective is to reinforce the integration of the axis Brasilia-Caracas-Buenos Aires-Montevideo", said Chavez adding that a united South America with a strong voice is needed "to challenge Washington".

In Brasilia Chavez said Venezuela could supply Brazil with all the necessary energy for its development "to become a world power" based on agreements for oil and gas.

Petrobras exploring in Venezuela has found significant oil reserves in several drillings and "in one filed only, seven million barrels". Chavez also highlighted the performance of his country's economy which is expected to end 2006 with a 10% expansion, following twelve consecutive growth quarters.

In Buenos Aires and in spite of the good relations with the Kirchner administration, Chavez has pending business regarding the removal of his ambassador, Roger Capella, for having been involved in Argentine internal affairs.

Chavez anticipated the quick naming of a new ambassador and also arrives with the promise of an 80 million US dollars check to help a dairy cooperative, SanCor, which is highly indebted, and was almost taken over by an international group headed by British-Hungarian tycoon George Soros.

Both are interpreted as extremely friendly gestures by Argentina, particularly the removal of the ambassador who was involved in the highly sensitive controversy between Iran and Argentina over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish institution in Buenos Aires that left hundreds killed and injured. Allegedly according to Argentine prosecutors the attack was masterminded by Teheran and executed by Hezbollah. The Chavez regime is closely linked to Teheran on oil interests and on their radical stance against Israel and the United States.

Former ambassador Capella encouraged a Kirchner administration radical picketer to publicly express support for the Teheran regime by visiting the acting Iranian ambassador in Buenos Aires.

In Uruguay Chavez is expected to personally apologize for his absence from the recent Ibero-American summit in Montevideo which coincided with the final leg of his re-election campaign. From Montevideo the Venezuelan leader flies to Bolivia for the second South American Nations community summit in Cochabamba, hosted by President Evo Morales.