Iranian president to visit 3 US-sanctioned Latin American countries to bolster ties

TEHRAN (AA): Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi will lead a high-ranking government delegation on a maiden three-nation tour of Latin America on Sunday as his administration seeks expansion of ties with “friendly countries.”

Accompanied by ministers of foreign affairs, defense, oil, and health, Raisi will visit Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, the three nations that share close ties with Iran and are at odds with the US.

Hassan Rouhani was the last Iranian president to visit Venezuela and Cuba in 2016. His predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had visited Nicaragua in 2007.

According to Iran’s state media, the three-nation Latin American tour, the first since Raisi came to power in 2021, seeks expansion of Iran’s “economic, political and scientific cooperation” with the three nations sanctioned by the US.

Iran and Venezuela are major oil producers and both are sanctioned by the US. However, Iran has managed to export crude to Caracas, circumventing sanctions, to help the Latin American country rebuild its energy infrastructure.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro during his visit to Tehran in June last year signed a 20-year pact with Iran to expand cooperation in oil, petrochemicals and defense.

The three-nation tour, according to state media, is in line with the realization of the Raisi administration’s policy to expand relations with “neighbors and friends.”

There are reports about Iran and Venezuela eyeing new agreements in the areas of science and technology, industry, energy, oil, mines, and automobiles to push the volume of their bilateral trade to $20 billion from $3.6 billion.

In August 2021, soon after taking office, Raisi spoke to his Nicaraguan counterpart Daniel Ortega and said the position of the two countries in “opposing the US hegemony is a valuable asset for interaction and convergence in the international arena.”