US-Venezuela ties may deteriorate over spying reports: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Ramin Vahidzadeh, an expert on Ibero-American affairs in Tehran, to discuss a recent order by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to reconsider relations with the US following allegations of espionage by Washington against Venezuela’s state oil company.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: looking at the situation, when it comes to US-Venezuelan ties, they have always been tumultuous; however, what direction is this going to take now?

Vahidzadeh: There are two things right now going on. One of them is these revelations of spying [and] the second thing is that the US and Venezuela are negotiating to re-establish their relations. If the second one, the re-establishing of the ties, not go very good, well, Mr. Maduro will certainly go most far of these just revising the relations. Because as you said, not only the top officials of this oil company, but also 10,000 people that were working there were in this case of espionage and the ex-president of that oil company right now is representing Venezuela at the UN. So it is a very curious case and if Washington is not negotiating well at the table, so Venezuela will certainly go far. And as we know Venezuela forms a part of OPEC [Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries] countries, so spying on Venezuela certainly has many issues on other countries which form this OPEC state so they can have this coalition between Venezuela and other countries to seek this response from the United States to why you were spying us for ten years and nothing was revealed at that time.

Press TV: Right now Nicolas Maduro claims that the whole point of the spying was to “steal Venezuela’s crude”. But I am curious as far as your opinion goes as to what was the gain there for the US to spy on the state oil company?  

Vahidzadeh: As Venezuelans themselves say, spying on the PDVSA, which is the oil company name, is spying on the heart of economy of Venezuela. As you mentioned, 96 percent of the foreign revenues come from this oil company and the oil in Venezuela. So knowing what is going on there is very critical to manipulate the scenarios for Venezuela. As you mentioned, from the rise to the power of the socialists by President Hugo Chavez until now, the United States does not want a socialist Venezuela. And they showed it in many cases. The last one in the presidential election that they claimed that there was a fraud and Mr. Maduro is not the legal president.

So they are seeking this scenario to go on and on even after if we suppose that there is no socialist government. They want to have their influence on Latin America and Latin American counts on Venezuela as well and other countries like Brazil. Both of them are in the spying scandal of the United States.

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