JAKARTA: Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid and his visiting Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez agreed to co-operate in oil and gas exploration during talks held here yesterday.
“We have agreed on the idea to form a joint effort to explore Indonesia’s oil and gas resources and to develop the economy in general,” Wahid told a Press conference.
Wahid said Indonesia could benefit from Venezuelan oil exploration technology, and Venezuela in turn could learn from Indonesia’s experience in gas exploration.
“Indonesia also supports the idea of forming a strategic alliance which will allow the two countries to develop democracy.
Without joint efforts each country will walk alone,” Wahid added.
He said the proposed alliance was not intended to “harm anyone” but to support global free trade.
Chavez, whose country holds the revolving presidency of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), is due to go from Jakarta to Libya, Nigeria and Algeria, before returning next week to Caracas, where the Opec summit has been scheduled for September 27-30.
He said he had come to Indonesia to invite Wahid to attend the summit, and that Wahid had accepted.
“Forty years of Opec and a new era begins. We need fair prices for our oil for our people, deepening of our relations. These are the great expectations we have for the second summit of Opec,” he said, but did not comment on current price levels.
Before his arrival in Iraq, Chavez said the cartel should flaunt its resurgent force on the world market.
“The time has come for Opec to show its power,” he said, cited by Iranian state radio after talks with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and Oil Minister Bijan Namdar-Zanganeh.
“The only way to counter international pressure is for Opec to strengthen its political will,” said Chavez, whose tour is highlighting the born-again power of Opec to move the world oil market.
© - Agence France Presse
