Publish Date: 23 June 2012 - 20:22

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has lashed out at the Western-engineered sanctions against Iran over the country’s nuclear energy program and pledged Caracas’ all-out support for Tehran.

At his Friday meeting with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Venezuela’s capital city, Caracas, Chavez slammed the “obstacles imposed by imperialism, blockades, threats, [and] unilateral sanctions” against Iran.

The US, Israel and some of their allies accuse Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program. Washington has used the allegation as a pretext to push the UN Security Council to impose four rounds of sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

The US and the EU have imposed new financial sanctions as well as oil embargoes against Iran since the beginning of 2012 under the same pretext.

Iran strongly rejects the allegations, maintaining that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
Chavez assured Tehran of “all the support of the Venezuelan people, of the Venezuelan government” in the face of the existing embargoes.

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