Is Venezuela Mining Uranium For Iran?

It's no secret that Hugo Chavez and his "brother" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are very close.

It's also no secret that the two share a hatred for America and are working together on several projects.

The two regimes opened a facility earlier this year producing tractors. Flags of Iran and Venezuela greet you as you enter the VENIRAN tractor plant in Venezuelan provincial capital of Ciudad Bolivar.

Ciudad Bolívar is the capital of Venezuela's southeastern Bolivar State (the province with the big green circle and blue stripes below).

Amazones State is in southern most Venezuela Province (in white). It next door to the Bolivar State.

VCrisis wrote about the Venezuela-Iran uranium rumors last year:

Originally posted 8 September 2006 | Camilo Ospina, on the day he was sworn in as Colombia’s new ambassador to the Organization of American States, stated in a speech titled “Geopolitics in Latin America” that Venezuela had two clandestine uranium mines and warned of the risk presented by this fact.

It is entirely possible that the trust bestowed upon him by the absence of any news media and the presence of an academic audience conspired to lead the diplomat into stating with total self confidence that “if I were asked about a risk, something that would make me very nervous, I would say that I get very nervous about the two factories, the two uranium mines that are present at this moment in Venezuela.”

He stated further that “if you were to go straight in the direction of Arauca, arrive at the border and penetrate about 400 kilometers beyond, you will find two factories, one is a bicycle factory and the other a motorcycle factory. These two factories are a façade for a uranium excavation.”

And he concluded: “Venezuela has no means of enriching uranium, but Iran does. If that came about, we would have a real problem.”

This is not the first time that there is talk of supposed uranium mines, nor of their relation to Iran. Earlier reports link Venezuelans, Cubans and Iranians to secret mining activities in the state of Amazonas, but the lack of proof kept the topic on a speculative plane and in the realm of conspiracy theories.

The transcribed statements indicate that the mines do exist and could very well be one of the reasons for the close ties between Hugo Chávez and Mahmud Ahmadinejad, the fundamentalist president of Iran. Furthermore, they would explain Venezuela and Cuba’s opposition to the decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency to submit the case of Iran to the Security Council and the announcement by Chávez himself, in May of 2005, concerning his interest in having that country furnish him with nuclear technology.

The two brothers celebrated the opening of the Veniran tractor plant earlier this year.