Russia, Venezuela to do tough control over practical steps on decisions

MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. Russia and Venezuela will set up a mechanism of tough control over how their bilateral decisions are fulfilled, visiting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin twittered from Caracas on Monday upon the end of a meeting of co-chairpersons of the Russian-Venezuelan high-level commission. “Our Venezuelan partners and I made an arrangement to set up a mechanism of tough control over how bilateral agreements are fulfilled,” he wrote in his microblog. “Trust between our countries is the backbone element in the bilateral relationship laid down by the leader of the Bolivarian revolution, Hugo Chavez, and President Vladimir Putin of Russia,” Rogozin said, adding that his talks with Ramirez had embraced a broad spectrum of issues and had been fruitful. Venezuela has become one of Russia’s main partners in Latin America. Their trade reached a record $ 2.4 billion last year. “Our countries take a consolidated position in the international arena,” he said, expressing Russia’s gratitude for the support it received from Venezuela on the Ukrainian problem. Ramirez said on his part a further strengthening of collaboration between Caracas and Moscow would become his country’s response to the sanctions introduced by the U.S. He singled out development of ties in defence and related technologies and said they would enable Venezuela to raise the combat readiness of its armed forces. The U.S. has taken on the role of a global gendarme and Venezuela’s response in this situation is a closer union with Russia, the countries making up the Latin American Bolivarian Alliance, the Union of South American Nations /UNASUR/, and China, Ramirez said. Venezuela deserves due respect and it will build up relations with all the countries sharing its views of the multipolar world, he said. Read more