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Tehran (AFP) Oct 19, 2010 Venezuela's firebrand President Hugo Chavez visited Iran on Tuesday to boost energy and trade ties, days after clinching a deal with Russia to build his country's first nuclear power plant. Iranian state television showed footage of Chavez being welcomed by his counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the president's office in what was his ninth visit to the Islamic republic. The two leaders later went into a meeting. "We hope this visit will have the desired result in the expansion of relations," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters. Chavez's visit is part of an international tour aimed at strengthening Venezuela's trade ties with eastern Europe and the Middle East. He arrived in Tehran from Moscow where he clinched a raft of deals, including the accord to build Venezuela's first nuclear power plant. That agreement raised eybrows in Washington which has had difficult relations with Chavez. "It is certainly a right of any country to pursue civilian nuclear energy, but with that right comes responsibilities," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters. For more than a decade, Russia has been building Iran's first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr. It is due to go on stream later this year. Chavez has been trying to bolster his international standing as he continues to spar openly with the United States. Long a thorn in Washington's side, Chavez has challenged US hegemony in the region and around the world, including publicly backing Iran's nuclear programme, which the United States strongly opposes. Ahmadinejad himself visited Venezuela in November last year in what was seen as an act of defiance against US-led efforts to step up sanctions over Iran's nuclear programme. Iran's English-language Press TV said on its website that Chavez's talks in Tehran would focus on expanding cooperation in the hydrocarbon and petrochemical sectors. On the agenda are the plans for a joint oil shipping company and joint construction of petrochemical plants, as well as Venezuelan participation in the exploitation of Iran's South Pars gas field, the website said. The two governments already signed memorandums of understanding on the three projects last year. Over the past five years, the two OPEC members have signed a series of agreements on oil and gas cooperation as the Iranian industry has been hit by pullouts by Western firms in the face of UN and US sanctions.
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