Venezuela is part of Iran’s Axis of Resistance, and so is any other country struggling against imperialism, President Nicolas Maduro has said.
“The Axis of Resistance exists throughout the world. It exists in Africa, in Asia, in the Middle East, in Latin America and in the Caribbean. The Resistance also belongs to the people who are fighting against neoliberalism, racism and various forms of colonization – political, economic, cultural colonization and cyber colonization,” Maduro said in an interview with Khamenei.ir, the official website of the Iranian supreme leader.
“All of us who fight against colonialism, all of us who fight to decolonize our minds and our people, are part of the Axis of Resistance that stands against the methods of the imperialists for imposing a hegemony on the world. The 21stcentury is our century,” the Venezuelan president stressed.
Maduro praised the warm, relationship between Venezuela and Iran, saying it began to be forged over two decades ago with the 2001 visit to Iran by the late former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.
Accusing ‘imperialists and Zionists’ of “conspiring against the progressive, revolutionary processes taking place in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially the Bolivarian Revolution,” Maduro suggested that the US and Israel were trying to smother Venezuela for its role as a “true alternative, an alternative of truth and justice, freedom, democracy,” and Caracas’ “strong position of solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
Maduro visited Iran earlier this month to sign a 20-year cooperation agreement, including a planned direct air route between Caracas and Tehran, the export of Venezuelan coffee to the Islamic Republic, and opportunities for Iranian businesses to invest in the Latin American country. During the trip, the Venezuelan leader stressed that the “love, friendship and brotherhood” between the two countries “knows no distance,” and dubbed the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the Bolivarian Revolution of 1999 “sister revolutions.”
‘Axis of Resistance’ is an Iranian term referring to an informal anti-US, anti-Israeli, anti-Saudi political and military bloc including Iran, Syria, and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces militias and Yemen’s Houthi fighters are occasionally listed as part of this Axis of Resistance.