Talks Between Chavez and Putin Lead to Several Agreements

Since 2005, Venezuela has already bought $4 billion worth of Russian weapons, including warplanes, helicopters, and Kalashnikov assault rifles.

Image and video courtesy: CCTV 9

(CARACAS (Itar-Tass)) - The talks between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez resulted in a substantial package of joint agreements to develop cooperation in such areas as aircraft and ship building, energy, education, transport and agriculture.

Four intergovernmental agreements were signed to mutually recognize education documents and to develop cooperation in the area of higher education, agriculture and in the transport infrastructure sector.

Interdepartmental memorandums were signed on cooperation in the electric power sector, science, technologies and innovations, and among the signed documents is an interdepartmental programme for cultural exchanges in 2010-12.

During Putin's visit, some documents were signed within the Junin 6 project implementation, including an agreement to pay a 600-million-dollar bonus and an agreement on the non-divulgence of information between Transneft and PDVSA.

Putin said on Saturday that Russia is ready to loan $2.2 billion to Venezuela.

Since 2005, Venezuela has already bought $4 billion worth of Russian weapons, including warplanes, helicopters, and Kalashnikov assault rifles.

Chavez said on Saturday Venezuela may buy at least one Be-200 amphibious aircraft to fight devastating forest fires in the country.

However, earlier reports said that Caracas wanted to buy 92 T-72 tanks and an unspecified number of Smerch multiple rocket launchers from Russia, among other military equipment, with the new loan.

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Special thanks to ITAR-Tass News agency in Moscow