The time has come for Belarus and Venezuela to significantly broaden cooperation horizons, Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko said as he met with President of the National Assembly of Venezuela Jorge Rodríguez, BelTA has learned.

“In the last decade, we focused mostly on the trade and economic agenda. But now, as we are facing attempts to isolate us internationally, to put illegitimate pressure on us and undermine the sovereignty of our countries, the time has come to significantly broaden the horizons of our interaction. We have maintained friendly, fraternal relations for a long time. We support each other in the international arena, we have similar views on the processes taking place in the world and we agree on how we should fight back attempts at global hegemony and efforts to make all countries adopt a certain political course. We believe that it is imperative to upgrade our inter-parliamentary contacts,” said Roman Golovchenko.

He noted that in both Belarus and Venezuela, the parliaments act as a direct link between the government and the people, society and the state. “Our parliament has had to work quite hard in recent years to push back against illegal economic and political pressure and attempts to undermine our economy. I am sure that the Venezuelan parliament has also been engaged in such work. In my opinion, we need to join forces, exchange expertise and knowledge and share best practices,” the prime minister remarked.

 The National Assembly of Venezuela put together the Venezuela-Belarus friendship group in October 2023. “I believe it is time to sign a cooperation agreement between our parliaments. I also hope that Venezuelan parliamentarians will help implement important bilateral projects in mechanical engineering, petrochemicals, science, technology and education. Everything we do has only one goal - to make the life of our peoples better,” added the Belarusian head of government.

Jorge Rodríguez noted that he closely followed the agenda of the visit of the high-profile Belarusian delegation. During his visit to Venezuela, Roman Golovchenko has already held several very important meetings - with President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro, Vice President, Minister of Planning Ricardo Menendez and Executive Vice President Delcy Rodríguez.

 “We are ready and willing to help promote relations between the parliaments of Belarus and Venezuela across the board. We would also like to take this opportunity to once again congratulate you on holding the parliamentary elections this year. We also want to send our best regards to Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, our friend, whom we admire. We will never forget his gesture of support in 2013. After our Comandante Hugo Chávez  passed away, your head of state attended the funeral. The people of Belarus and Venezuela are like brothers,” emphasized the president of the National Assembly of Venezuela. According to him, it is especially important to stick together in the current difficult situation when both countries are subject to unilateral sanctions aimed at hurting their economies.

After the official visit to Venezuela, the Belarusian prime minister is set to travel to Cuba and Nicaragua. The goal of the current trip of the Belarusian government delegation is to develop cooperation with faraway countries.

belta.by