MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Kirchner: “we will always support those who helped us”

Pte. Kirchner and Pte. Chávez

“With the brothers from the Latinamerican republics that have helped us we are always going to be supportive. The doors of Argentina will remain completely open and we're doing so with no drawbacks”, said Argentina's president Nestor Kirchner during a political rally in the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

Kirchner was referring to last Friday's political gathering in a soccer stadium organized by Venezuela and local picketers' groups and where President Hugo Chavez was the main speaker lashing out at US president and his Latinamerican tour. "Have no doubts that those who forgot about the Argentines for so long, those rulers of other countries, no matter how large they are, and that they didn't take us into account, whether they want to come or not to Argentina is their problem", blasted Kirchner. US President Bush last week toured several countries of the region, Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico, but did not include Argentina, that was the first leg of a "counter" tour by the Venezuelan leader who visited Bolivia, Nicaragua and Haiti. According to the White House Argentina was excluded from the tour because Bush visited the country in November 2005 when the Americas Summit and where Mercosur in a block buried the idea of a free trade association of the Americas extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. At the time Chavez also participated in a political rally condemning the Bush administration's policies. Although the Argentine government did not admit it publicly, it did supply the logistics for the last Friday rally in the heart of Buenos Aires that gathered an estimated 50.000 people. The Buenos Aires press revealed that the link between the pro government picketer groups, --the alleged organizers--, and the administration was Oscar Parrlli, Secretary General of the Argentine presidency. "The fact is that lately I have been criticized for having received the president of a sister republic, the president from Venezuela, who has shown all along solidarity for Argentina and who came when we needed him and he helped us", insisted Kirchner. The message rapidly echoed in Caracas where Chavez talked about it in his program "chatting with the president". "Kirchner was out today defending me from the attacks of the right that hate me so much. We hail the good friend Nestor" said Chavez who then went on to read the dispatch with the news about the Argentine president's support for him.