Ambassador Hojjatollah Soltani said that in an interview Tuesday with Office to Safeguard Ayatollah Khamenei’s Works and in response to a question about the friendly relations between Iran and Venezuela and that country's president's recent meeting with the Supreme Leader in his visit to Tehran, in which he appreciated Iran's assistance, and the two sides' resistance against the US pressure, which antagonist policies did the Americans adopt in recent years against Venezuela?
Soltani added that America is unfortunately sick with a disease in which it is using its national currency, dollar, as a political lever to impose its hegemony against the financial and banking systems of the independent countries, trying to urge those countries to abandon their independent policies and get aligned with the US policies.
He said that many independent countries in the world, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua are not congruent in the ideal economic system of the United States, which is the reason why resistance and appropriate policies aimed at encountering the US pressure need to be adopted.
The Ambassador said that America used all the means within its disposal to overthrow President Maduro’s government, and when it failed in doing so focused its efforts aimed at weakening the government and urging it to yield to US demands. He said that the Americans tried to assassinate Maduro several times.
“They also recognized the Venezuelan Congress speaker, who had self-claimed himself as president and as that country’s leader, urging some US allies, also to accept his presidency, and declaring that President Maduro’s cabinet is illegitimate, as a means to impose greater political pressure against the legitimate government of Venezuela. They also took the issue to international organizations, such as the UN General Assembly, which was of course a futile effort," he added.
The other thing they did was using the regional Latin American Countries Organization to impose pressure against Venezuela. They also established new regional countries such as the Lima Group, comprised of twelve Latin American countries and beyond for the same purpose, which was nothing but to bring the Nicaraguan government down to its knees.
In the economic field, too, Venezuela’s access to buying medicine, selling oil, buying oil and gas industries’ facilities, ITC spare parts, the facilities for refineries, and whatever a country needs were sanctioned by America, to urge Venezuela to yield to the US demands.
The Venezuelan banks were sanctioned to force that country to yield to ten demands of the United States. Venezuela resisted against all those demands, and all those were the first wave of the US pressure against that country.
Resistance against the economic pressure and combination of other pressure levers was not any easy job and needed time, planning and infrastructure.
Reporter: What kind of difficulties did such US pressures bear for Venezuela? How is the current status of the Venezuelan economy now?
Soltani: The 1st wave's influence of the Venezuelan economy was reflected in President Maduro’s 2022 report to the Parliament, in which he said that his country has no oil exports that year. That is while Venezuela exported between 40 to 45 billion dollars of oil before that and the country was also plagued with the coronavirus disease pandemic and the high expenses for dealing with curing the patients.
The government was also giving food packages worth millions of dollars to the vulnerable social classes, which led to a 2000%+ inflation in that year, but in mid-2021 the signs of defat of the US pressure began to appear. Firstly, the Lima Group was dissolved as its member-states one by one began to exit and began dealing with Venezuela after a 20-year hiatus.
He said that the second wave of US pressure included presenting an illegitimate image of the legal Venezuelan government at the international organizations and recognizing the self-claimed illegitimate government, that in the year 2019 fifty-five countries had recognized its legitimacy, but at the end of 2021 their number had decreased to 16 countries.
The macro-scale Venezuelan inflation, too, began lowering from 2000% in 2019 to 600% in 2020, and at the end of 2021 it was merely 4.5%, after which it has been a positive two-digit figure. Therefore, we realize that resistance is the only way to combat the illegitimate US sanction, which has been successful both in Iran and in Venezuela.
He said that the economic, technological, and even investment infrastructures in Venezuela were not as powerful as they are in Iran, but it has managed to resist successfully against all those sanctions, to an extent that the US has been urged to balance some of those sanctions, realizing that they do not work. Military intervention and assassination, which sometimes worked in the past, too, did not work in Venezuela, as it became stronger and more self-confident with the passage of each new year, progressing with its socialist, freedom seeking and revolutionary policies.
Reporter: The proximity of Iran and Venezuela, too, is the result of the decisions made by the highest political officials of the two countries. What was the basis for that decision making?
Soltani: Iran and Venezuela have lots of political commonalties and deep brotherly, friendly, freedom seeking, and independence-loving tendencies, which have all led to very close relations of the two countries. The two countries are assisting each other at the international organization now.
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