Venezuela and Bolivia signed agreements in areas such as energy and oil, gas, education, culture, health, ecological mining, air services and communications. Photo: @PresidencialVen/Twitter.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his Bolivian counterpart Luis Arce signed 13 cooperation agreements in strategic areas after holding a high-level meeting at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas (capital).
The signed agreements aim to strengthen bilateral ties and deepen the integration process between Bolivia and Venezuela in areas such as energy and oil, gas, education, culture, health, ecological mining, air services and intelligence exchange.
Such agreements were terminated with the closing of the III. Bolivia-Venezuelan Integration Commission, which met the day before at the Casa Amarilla “Antonio José de Sucre”, the seat of the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and consisted of bilateral working groups.
After signing the documents, the Bolivian President thanked the Venezuelan people for their hospitality and affection, assuring that it meant the resumption of relations between the two nations.
“This strengthening and signing of agreements, reached after several days of work, marks the restart of our relations,” he stressed.
Likewise, the Bolivian head of state indicated that his country’s goal was “to improve the integration of our Latin America, to build that great fatherland that we all long for and that we all wish for”.
“We will keep working. We also want integration in communications, in air traffic. We want Venezuela to feel like they have a great ally in Bolivia,” he said.
For his part, the Venezuelan President stressed the importance of signing the 13 agreements, assuring that a strategic alliance is resuming, to which they devote time and achieve results, which is why both governments must work diligently on it.
“This two-day working day in the governments of Bolivia and Venezuela was a right step to restart the path of building a strong, comprehensive relationship between our countries,” he said.
The Venezuelan President also ratified the proposal that both nations become a central axis of petrochemical investments to guarantee farmers in the Latin American and Caribbean region fertilizers for food production.
“These 13 documents are more than a memorandum of understanding, they are a sworn commitment between our peoples to usher in a new phase of common work, unification and integration between our sisters Bolivia and Venezuela,” stressed Maduro.
Likewise, the Venezuelan dignitary urged and reiterated that the cultural identity of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean should prevail over the processes of integration and unification “We are on the right side of history.”
As part of the act of protocol, Nicolás Maduro presented his Bolivian counterpart with a replica of the sword of Liberator Simón Bolívar.
Diplomatic relations between Venezuela and Bolivia date back to September 14, 1883, but the triumph of the Bolivarian Revolution marked a before and after in terms of integration.
(Adopted from Telesur)