Azerbaijan, Baku, November 23 / Trend T.Jafarov /
Despite Iran's strong political ties with Venezuela and Bolivia, Tehran has little potential for cooperation with strong and big countries of Latin America, Professor at the University of Glasgow, Iranian expert Reza Taghizadeh told Trend by telephone from London.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit started to the countries of Latin America. Iran intends to expand cooperation with Latin American countries, Ahmadinejad said after a visit to Brazil on Nov. 23. Iran's President will make visits to Bolivia and Venezuela as well, Mehr news agency reported.
According to Taghizadeh, Iran has two goals in expanding cooperation with Latin America. "Iran wants Latin American countries took a position against the United States, on the other hand, to support Iran's nuclear program," he said.
"Iran is trying to purchase raw uranium from these countries, to use the banking systems of the Latin American countries and thereby weaken the international embargo imposed on Iranian banks," the Iranian expert considers.
According to the expert, Iran is closely cooperating with Bolivia and Venezuela, but Brazil and Argentina will not help Iran reach its goal.
Iran imports goods from Brazil totaling $1.5 billion per year. Iran tries to get help from this country to eliminate technical shortages in its nuclear program, but the strong Latin American countries do not want to cooperate with Iran in energy or in developing nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad's visit to Brazil was planned a year ago, but took place only this year. Brazil is one of the most economically powerful countries - G20.
The UN Security Council adopted five resolutions on Iran to stop its nuclear program. U.S. and the West suspect that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran also claims that will continue this program to generate electricity.
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