Iran reiterates support for the Venezuelan government, declares readiness to send humanitarian aid

Tabnak – While the United States is raising pressures on the Venezuelan government to force the country’s president to resign, Iran reiterates support for the legitimate government in Caracas. At the same time, Tehran expresses readiness to send humanitarian aid for the Venezuelan people.

In this vein and amid escalation of the political crisis in Venezuela, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has slammed foreign intervention in the Latin American country’s internal affairs.

The Islamic Republic supports Venezuelan government and nation, Zarif said in a meeting with Ruben Dario Molina, Venezuela's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Asia and the Middle East, in Tehran on Sunday.

The top Iranian diplomat added that Tehran supports Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's proposal for political talks between the government and the opposition with the purpose of resolving differences.

Zarif and Molina emphasized that the meddlesome US measures in Venezuela and other Latin American countries as well as Washington's threats to use force against Caracas are in violation of international law and the United Nations Charter, and are doomed to fail.

In January, in a phone conversation with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza in January, Zarif had said the Islamic Republic supports the legal government in Venezuela and the country's people in the face of all plots, particularly those hatched by the United States.

Zarif and Arreaza also exchanged views about ways to expand negotiations between the Venezuelan government and the opposition groups and find a political solution to the conflict.

Meanwhile, another Iranian official voiced the country’s readiness to export medicine and medical equipment to Venezuela.

Head of the Food and Drug Administration of Iran Mahdi Pirsalehi said his organization is prepared to send medicine and medical equipment to Venezuela and provide the Latin American nation with the technical know-how in the medical sector under an agreement the two sides have signed in 2018.

He made the comments at a meeting with Venezuela’s deputy foreign minister and its ambassador to Iran, held in Tehran on Sunday. In the meeting, the two sides explored avenues to promote cooperation between Iran’s Food and Drug Administration and Venezuela.

Political crisis in Venezuela has flared in recent weeks in the wake of the opposition’s attempts to unseat President Nicolas Maduro. The South American country has been caught in a downward spiral with growing opposition fueled by skyrocketing hyperinflation, power cuts and shortages of food and medicine. More than three million Venezuelans have left the country in recent years.

Earlier this month, Russia warned that the United States is considering a range of options against the government of Maduro, including a direct military invasion of the Latin American country.