Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made his fourth trip to Iran in two years, in an attempt to strengthen ties between the two countries and to discuss new ways of resisting U.S. policies.
Chavez arrived in Iran from Saudi Arabia where he attended the OPEC summit. He was accompanied by a string of top Venezuelan officials for the hours-long visit — among them the foreign, industry, oil and communication ministers, as well as the mayor of Caracas, the country’s capital.
Ahmadinejad also attended the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
During the gathering, the two dictators echoed one another, blaming President Bush’s policies for the decline of the dollar and its negative effect on other countries, and challenging Saudi Arabia’s reluctance to mention weak dollar concerns in the summit’s final declaration.
Ahmadinejad claimed OPEC’s member countries want to convert their cash reserves into a currency other than the depreciating U.S. dollar, which he called a “worthless piece of paper.”
Chavez said the dollar was in free-fall and that its “empire” must end, and proposed trading oil in a basket of currencies excluding the dollar.
