Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez defended Iran's nuclear program on Tuesday, saying Washington's opposition to Tehran and the invasion of Iraq both resulted from American energy concerns.
"You know that one of the most serious problems the world has today is the energy problem, so much so that the North American empire has invaded Iraq just to look for oil and now threatens Iran because of oil," Chavez said in a nationally televised speech, referring to the United States. "It's an excuse by the empire, looking for energy."
Chavez, who counts Mahmoud Ahmadinejad among his friends, also declared that he is "completely sure that it's absolutely false that the Iranian government is developing an atomic bomb." He also said that the U.S. has been defeated in Iraq, and forcasted that the U.S. "would eat twice as much of the dust of defeat [in an invasion of Iran], I'm absolutely sure of that."
Back in January when the IAEA voted to refer Iran to the Security Council over its nuclear program, Venezuela was joined only by Cuba and Syria in voting against it.
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