MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Maduro thanks Fernández for his speech in Los Angeles

The Venezuelan leader spoke from Tehran, the second stop of his current global tour

Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro Friday thanked Argentine President Alberto Fernández for his message at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, a gathering from which Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua have been excluded by the hosting country.

Maduro said Fernández's remarks were those of a “brave” man. “Alberto Fernandez has made a firm, clear, courageous speech and put everything in its place,” said Maduro from Iran, who praised Fernández's maneuver to criticize US President Joseph Biden for his decision not to invite those three countries on the grounds that they do not have democratic governments and then offer him to visit Buenos Aires for the Celac Summit in December, where nobody is set aside.

Maduro made these remarks on Iran's state-run HispanTV. Iran is suspected of having masterminded and financed the 1994 bombing of the Jewish social work association AMIA, for which nobody has been convicted, other than the man who furnished the attacking vehicle.

Iranian officials suspected of having been involved in the attack have traveled freely worldwide despite Interpol alerts on them.

In his speech before the Summit of the Americas, Fernández also called for the immediate dismissal from the OAS of the Uruguayan Luis Almagro, under whom the continental organization has played a part in the Bolivian uprising that led to Evo Morales' resignation and his being replaced by Janine Áñez, who is currently on trial for those actions.

Fernández also asked Biden to reshape his country's policy towards Latin America and questioned the support of his predecessor Donald Trump to the administration of Mauricio Macri.

The Argentine President also called for a change in the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) so that “without further delay, it has to return to its governance of Latin America and the Caribbean”.

This institution, Fernández insisted, “historically was in Latin American hands”, and is now run by US national Mauricio Claver-Carone.

Maduro is on a world tour that started earlier this week in Ankara. While in Iran, the South American leader is to meet with local authorities with whom he will sign a 20-year strategic document, it was reported.

Iran and Venezuela, whose relations date back to the 1960s, have substantially strengthened their ties over the years, as their cooperation has been framed in joint initiatives to circumvent unilateral coercive measures imposed by the United States and catapult their joint development in various fields.

The two countries are “comrades in [their] struggle; in anti-imperialism, in anti-colonialism, in anti-racism”, according to Maduro's statements to HispanTV.

The Venezuelan leader also welcomed Iran's help in alleviating US coercive measures by sending oil tankers, circumventing Washington's threats of irrational attacks.