President Chavez welcomes President Ahmadinejad

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez welcomed visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at his presidential palace here Monday. The two leaders met in Caracas on Monday afternoon on the first leg of the IRI president's four-nation tour that will also take Ahmadinejad to Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador. Chavez accuses the US and its allies of wrongly demonizing Iran. On Sunday, he rebuffed calls by US officials in support of Tehran. 'What the empire does is make you laugh, in its desperation to do something they won't be able to do: dominate this world,' Chavez said on Venezuela television before Ahmadinejad arrived there. Iran–Venezuela relations have been strengthened substantially in recent years. Trade between Venezuela and Iran is growing steadily and the two countries have launched joint ventures in a number of sectors, including energy, agriculture, housing, and infrastructure. The value of industrial development projects carried out by Iranian firms in Venezuela stands at around dlrs four billion. Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry. Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment. Tehran has dismissed the West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing those sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians’ national resolve to continue the path.