MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina/Venezuela ratify strategic, political alliance

During a lively conference Cristina and Chavez forget recent misunderstandings

Argentina and Venezuela signed on Thursday twenty one cooperation agreements on a range of fields, particularly agro-industry, energy and medical supplies, consolidating the strategic and political alliance between both administrations dating back to 2003.

Visiting Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner publicly thanked her host, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez for the "financial help" granted (when Argentina was barred from international money markets) while the Venezuelan president announced compensations for Argentina's Techint Sidor steel plant recently nationalized by the "Bolivarian" revolution. Actually the meeting seems to have buried recent irritating events of the bilateral relation. It was precisely only a few months ago when the Venezuelan leader acquired one billion US dollars in Argentine bonds at an exorbitant discount which President Chavez immediately converted, triggering a collapse of Argentine bonds with investors fearing a default was near. Then there was the months-long US federal case in Miami involving the suitcase with 800.000 US dollars cash sent from Venezuela allegedly to help finance Mrs. Kirchner's presidential campaign and which was unexpectedly discovered by the Buenos Aires Customs. The airing of the case prevented Mrs. Kirchner from visiting Venezuela late last year, but this time not a word was mentioned of the incident. During the several hours meeting at the presidential Miraflores Palace in Caracas, which included private talks and a video conference open to the press, the two presidents agreed to quarterly reciprocal visits which mean Chavez will be flying to Buenos Aires in April and Mrs. Kirchner is expected back in July. For what proved a very lively and relaxed video conference, including singing and family confessions, the two leaders and their cabinet ministers exchanged ideas with a farmers' cooperative in the state of Trujillo one of the several places where thousands of Argentine dairy cattle have been incorporated to the local milk farms. It was then that Mrs. Kirchner publicly thanked President Chavez for the financial aid given to Argentina's main dairy industry cooperative, SanCor, which had saved her from administration. "We will always be grateful to Venezuela for the help given to SanCor so that they could continue operating, and because this also helped Argentina", said Cristina Fernandez. The agreements signed contemplate from Argentine participation in the development of mature oil fields in the east of Venezuela to Argentine agriculture and food technology transfer for the construction of seed and food processing plants and developing of special strains adapted to Venezuelan conditions. Another important area is industrial complementation for the manufacturing of Argentine designed medical equipment to supply Venezuela's 130 government hospitals. It was also agreed to pool the two countries air transport resources so that Caracas becomes a hub for government owned Aerolineas Argentinas into the northern hemisphere which will be fed with daily flights between Buenos Aires and Caracas. "Today signing these agreements every thing seems very simple and over in a couple of hours. But behind this are months and months of hard work to make interests and production capacities compatible, all is part of a long process of discussing trade agreements, technology transfer in a dynamic integration process", said Mrs. Kirchner. "This is the new and effective way of integrating our region, with trade and technology transfer", underlined the Argentine president. In direct reference to criticisms from Buenos Aires for having visited Cuba and Venezuela on the day and week when US President Barack Obama was inaugurated, Mrs. Kirchner said that "besides the fact we share a common view of the region (with Chavez), maybe they don't know that Venezuela is Argentina's main broiler industry customer". On the light side of the meeting President Chavez took time to sing and reveal that as a child he was referred to as "Goofy" and Mrs. Kirchner admitted she may soon be a grandmother. Chavez finally joked that the opposition like to call him the Indian with a wart in his big forehead, and that he never had it extirpated because it was precisely his brain. "A brain that has ruled this country for the last decade", he concluded. Mrs. Kirchner and her numerous delegation of ministers and businessmen are scheduled back in Buenos Aires on Friday.