CARACAS, Venezuela: In his first visit to Latin America, Iran’s hard-line president on Monday met with his Venezuelan counterpart and declared that both countries have “a common enemy,” alluding to the United States, before signing a series of cooperation agreements.
President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to Venezuela came a year and a day after President Nicolás Maduro visited him in Iran. Both countries are under heavy US economic sanctions.
Raisi said the link between the two countries “is not normal, but rather a strategic relationship,” insisting that their nations have “common interests and we have common enemies.”
“They do not want the two countries, Iran and Venezuela, to be independent,” Raisi said referring to the US government. His tour of allied nations in Latin America, including Cuba and Nicaragua, comes amid rising tensions with the administration of US President Joe Biden.
The US has accused Iran of providing Russia with materials to build a drone manufacturing plant east of Moscow, while the Kremlin seeks to ensure a steady supply of weapons for its invasion of Ukraine. US intelligence officials believe the plant in Russia could start operations early next year, but Iran has said it supplied drones to Russia before the start of the war.
The more than dozen agreements signed by officials from the countries Monday include scholarships for Venezuelan students and the importations of cattle to Iran. Maduro’s visit last year to Iran resulted in agreements to expand ties in the oil and petrochemical industries, the military and the economy. But only a handful of the agreements have materialized.
Venezuela and Iran have maintained close relations since the government of the late President Hugo Chávez. Maduro, who became president in 2013 after Chávez death, has promoted trade relations with Iran, China, Russia and Turkiye to try to overcome the effects of the economic sanctions.
Iran, particularly since 2020, has helped alleviate part of a fuel shortage in Venezuela.
“We are on the right side of history and together we will be invincible,” Maduro said.
Iran’s president begins Latin America tour with stop in Venezuela
https://arab.news/p3pnr
Iran’s president begins Latin America tour with stop in Venezuela
- Both countries are under heavy US economic sanctions
Iraqi army fully takes over key base following US withdrawal
BAGHDAD: US forces have fully withdrawn from an air base in western Iraq in implementation of an agreement with the Iraqi government, Iraqi officials said Saturday.
Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind down a US-led coalition fighting the Daesh group in Iraq by September 2025, with US forces departing bases where they had been stationed.
However, a small unit of US military advisers and support personnel remained. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani in October told journalists that the agreement originally stipulated a full pullout of US forces from the Ain Al-Asad air base in western Iraq by September. But “developments in Syria” since then required maintaining a “small unit” of between 250 and 350 advisers and security personnel at the base.
Now all US personnel have departed.
Iraqi Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Abdul Amir Rashid Yarallah oversaw the assignment of tasks and duties to various military units at the base on Saturday following the withdrawal of US forces and the Iraqi Army’s full assumption of control over the base, the military said in a statement.
The statement added that Yarallah “instructed relevant authorities to intensify efforts, enhance joint work, and coordinate between all units stationed at the base, while making full use of its capabilities and strategic location.”
A Ministry of Defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly confirmed that all US forces had departed the base and had also removed all American equipment from it.
There was no statement from the US military on the withdrawal.
US forces have retained a presence in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq and in neighboring Syria.
The departure of US forces may strengthen the hand of the government in discussions around disarmament of non-state armed groups in the country, some of which have used the presence of US troops as justification for keeping their own weapons.
Al-Sudani said in a July interview with The Associated Press that once the coalition withdrawal is complete, “there will be no need or no justification for any group to carry weapons outside the scope of the state.”
