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Chavez joins host Assad to denounce US 'imperialism'
By Roueida Mabardi
AFP
DAMASCUS
Petroleumworld.com 08 31 06
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, hailed in Syria as a hero for Arabs, joined his host and fellow US arch-foe President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday to denounce American "hegemony".
"We have the same position: we reject the American empire's imperialism and attempts at hegemony," Chavez said on his first visit to Syria, aimed at consolidating relations between the two countries.
"We have the same political vision. We are two countries and two peoples resisting and facing imperialist aggression," he said at the start of his two-day visit.
"This is an historic visit," said Assad, paying homage to firebrand Chavez's "great positions" and his "feelings toward despoiled peoples".
Assad also denounced recent UN Security Council resolutions on the Middle East as
a product of the United States' hegemony.
"The recent resolutions adopted by the Security Council concerning Middle East matters ... constitute an interference in states' internal affairs ... and are the result of American hegemony," Assad told a joint press conference.
"If the United Nations adopts more resolutions based on the same principle, it will only crush optimism and might lead to further chaos and bloodshed," Assad said.
As an example, Assad cited last May's Resolution 1680 which called for the establishment of diplomatic relations between Syria and Lebanon and the finalising of the frontier between the two countries.
"If sovereign states reject (US hegemony) and work toward law and justice, they can help bring about stability in our region and in the world," he said.
Syria has been the target of other resolutions, including this month's Resolution 1701 that calls, among other things, for the disarmament of the Damascus-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah and 2004's Resolution 1559 calling for foreign troops to quit Lebanon and all militias to be disarmed.
That text, coupled with outcry over the assassination of former premier Rafiq Hariri, forced Syria, the longtime powerbroker in Lebanon, to withdraw its military from Lebanon last year after a 29-year presence.
Chavez was a fierce critic of Israel's month-long offensive in Lebanon, recalling his ambassador, and has found common ground with Syria, which has irked the West with its declarations of support for Hezbollah Shiite militants in Lebanon.
The flamboyant former paratrooper arrived from Asia, where in China last week he denounced Israel's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon as "genocide," likening its action to war crimes committed by Adolf Hitler.
Chavez called "once more" on Israel to "withdraw its forces of aggression from Lebanon, lift the criminal blockade it imposes on the Lebanese people and end its massacres of the Palestinian people".
"I call on the Israelis to withdraw from the Golan Heights because this territory does not belong to them. This is a flagrant theft carried out in front of the whole world," he said.
Venezuela has accused Washington of being behind a failed 2002 coup against him. Washington, in turn, openly supports Syrian opposition figures, as well as Israel, which has occupied Syria's Golan Heights since winning the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Washington accuses Syria of supporting terrorism -- including Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah -- and allowing insurgents to cross into Iraq.
Earlier this month US intelligence named a special case manager to focus on Venezuela, effectively putting the Caribbean nation on a par with "axis of evil" states Iran and North Korea.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is due in Damscus on Thursday as part of a regional tour aimed at shoring up the fragile peace between Lebanon and Israel.
bur-cjo/al
AFP 30 1620 GMT 08 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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