Ahmadinejads Brazil visit startles Washington


Sat, 02 May 2009 07:36:22 GMT

Entrepreneurs in the oil, gas, petrochemical, agriculture, food, platform construction, mining and auto assembly sectors are to accompany Ahmadinejad during his visit to Brazil.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's upcoming visit to the Latin American county of Brazil has reportedly alarmed the Obama White House.

A day after Iran's ambassador to Brazil announced that Ahmadinejad and a large entourage of 110 representatives from 65 companies are to visit Brasilia on Wednesday, US Secretary of State dubbed the development as "quite disturbing."

"I don't think in today's world, where it's a multipolar world, where we are competing for attention and relationships with the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, that it's in our interest to turn our backs on our own hemisphere," Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Friday.

Defending the US President's strategy of reaching out to leaders such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban President Raul Castro, Clinton blamed Barack Obama's predecessor for “Iran and China's gains” in the region.

Clinton lamented the American loss in the region, blaming the Bush administration for its policy concerning countries such as Venezuela and Cuba.

"The prior administration tried to isolate them, tried to support opposition to them, tried to turn them into international pariahs. It didn't work,” she said.

Iran's strong partnerships with nations opposing imperialism and their rejection of interference by foreign powers, has been a source of major concern at the White House.

Obama's secretary of state also touched on Washington's alarm over Iran's massive new embassy in Nicaragua. "The Iranians are building a huge embassy in Managua -- and you can only imagine what that's for," Clinton said.

Washington accuses Iran of using its friendly relations in the region for promoting terrorism, spying and weapons.

Tehran, however, says the strong partnerships are the result of Washington's polices which has caused nations to oppose American imperialism and interference within their boundaries.

Earlier in March, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged the US to open a new chapter in its relations with Latin American countries by not interfering in their affairs.

"I am convinced that the United States can definitely have another sort of relationship with Latin America," said Lula, after a meeting with US President Barack Obama in Washington.

Although Iran's strategic relationships with countries in Latin America has been dubbed as a new development, the country's bilateral ties with some individual Latin American nations are of long standing and relatively robust.

The country has shared a warm relationship with Cuba since the end of the eight-year war imposed on Iran by the deposed Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hossein.

Iran's political relationship with Venezuela stretches to the 1960s when the two nations along with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq co-founded the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

MT/DT