Venezuela ambassador calls for US cooperation

Houston, July 12: Venezuela's ambassador to the United States has called for cooperation between the two often-hostile nations, but said Washington first needs to show some respect.

Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez said Venezuela's push toward socialism and recent nationalization of foreign oil operations in the Orinoco heavy oil belt were an effort to bring ''equilibrium'' to the society.

Neither that nor the recent rise of other leftist governments in Latin America were a threat to the United States, he said yesterday.

''With all this new reality, we think that Venezuela and the US have a clear role of cooperation. We have to go beyond our selfish interests and look at the interests of the hemisphere with a sense of medium and long-term,'' Alvarez said in a speech to the Greater Houston Partnership.

Venezuela is one of the largest energy producers in the Western Hemisphere and the United States the largest consumer, he pointed out.

The Bush administration has had frosty relations with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Its recently departed ambassador, William Brownfield, had a particularly rocky stay in Caracas, where eggs and tomatoes were thrown at him and Chavez threatened him with expulsion.

When asked what message Chavez hoped to hear from the next ambassador, Alvarez replied curtly: '''We are ready to respect Venezuela,' period.'' Venezuela took control of foreign oil projects in the Orinoco belt last month and is still trying to reach compensation agreements with US oil giants ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips.

Alvarez said the nationalizations were done to restore Venezuelan control over its own resources, which are being used to fund social programs by the Chavez government.

''This is, for us, the key issue about energy, how to recover equilibrium, how to maintain the equilibrium,'' he said.

''Sometimes they (the companies) feel we went too far, but believe me, the equilibrium was broken in such a way we had to go that far,'' he said.

Reuters>