Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a guest of honor yesterday at the inauguration of leftist Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, who won an election late last year as a fervent critic of the US.
Correa will take the oath of office in the presence of many foreign dignitaries, including his key regional allies, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales.
The president-elect ran on the promise to improve the plight of the Ecuadoran people, but now needs money to implement his ambitious development plans.
"The new president of this country shares common views with us; we will talk about deepening and expanding ties between Iran and Ecuador," Ahmadinejad said on Friday, before embarking on his Latin American tour.
The trip was designed to cultivate Washington's critics and rally backing for Tehran's nuclear program, which the US government insists conceals ambitions to build nuclear weapons.
The Iranian president flew in shortly after late on Sunday from Nicaragua, where he held talks with newly elected President Daniel Ortega, a Cold War-era foe of the US.
The two leaders announced the restoration of full diplomatic relations and the re-opening of embassies in each other's capitals.
"Rest assured that we will improve our relations to the point of fulfilling every wish and thing that we desire. It is our will to walk hand in hand," Ahmadinejad said through a translator after meeting Ortega.
Ortega said Ahmadinejad's visit was "not merely a matter of protocol."
The Iranian president came to Nicaragua from Venezuela, where he signed commercial agreements with Chavez, an outspoken critic of US President George W. Bush and advocate for Tehran's nuclear program. Each proclaimed the other an ideological "brother."
Ahmadinejad plans to burnish relations with other leftist Latin American critics of the Bush administration when he attends the inauguration of Correa, who has pledged to forge stronger ties with Venezuela and allow a lease for a US military airbase on the country's Pacific Coast to expire.
The Iranian president will also meet in Ecuador other South American presidents, including Bolivia's Evo Morales, on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony, before finishing his tour today.
Ortega, who was the Marxist leader of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front that ousted US-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, told reporters that Iran is willing to join Nicaraguans in a "battle to eliminate poverty among our people."
The Central American country is one of the poorest in the Americas.
"The imperialists don't like to see us helping each other, getting ahead and developing our countries," Ahmadinejad said.
"But let the world know that the people of Nicaragua and Iran will march together and that Iran will support Ortega with all our strength," he added.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
‘MOBILIZED’: While protesters countered ICE agents, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz activated the state’s National Guard to ‘support the rights of Minnesotans’ to assemble Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of US President Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement, although not yet deployed to city streets. There have been protests every day since the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers. Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
NASA on Saturday rolled out its towering Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft as it began preparations for its first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years. The maneuver, which takes up to 12 hours, would allow the US space agency to begin a string of tests for the Artemis 2 mission, which could blast off as early as Feb. 6. The immense orange and white SLS rocket, and the Orion vessel were slowly wheeled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and painstakingly moved 6.5km to Launch Pad 39B. If the
RSS