Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, left, greets Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, on Monday. Photo: msnbc.com
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Sunday embarked on a five-day trip to Latin America to seek support against tough new Western sanctions.
Ahmadinejad will visit Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador, days after Tehran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important shipping lanes.
The US will respond if Iran tries to close the Strait of Hormuz, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Sunday.
All four countries have frosty ties with the US and their leaders have made numerous visits to Tehran in the past four years to build up diplomatic and business links.
Wang Jinglie, a research fellow with the Institute of West Asian and African Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that this marks another escalating step for the Iranian side.
"Now the Islamic republic wants to challenge the US in its own backyard," Wang said. "Under increasing pressure from debilitating Western economic sanctions, Tehran has to shore up with countries that are anti-US in order to boost bilateral relations, for both political and economical benefits."
Just before leaving Iran, Ahmadinejad said that all the countries on his itinerary "resist the oppression" of the US and share "an anti-colonialist view."
Ahmadinejad called Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez "a hero in the struggle against oppression," said Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega was leading a "revolution (that) is the same as the Iranian revolution," and praised Ecuador's ruling "revolutionaries who battle the (US) regime of domination."
He said he planned to sign deals with all these countries.
"Venezuela and Iran are allies within OPEC. It is possible for them to come up with a plan to counter the US economic recovery," Chen Fengying, director of the Institute of World Economic Studies under the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times.
Washington slapped limited sanctions on Venezuela last year, after US officials said it sent at least two cargoes of reformate, a gasoline blending component, to Iran.
Despite growing pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear work, senior Iranian officials say an underground uranium enrichment facility deep inside a mountain will be started in the "near future," Reuters reported.
According to Iranian media, it is preparing to move its highest-grade uranium refinement work to Fordow, a facility near the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Qom, from its main enrichment plant at Natanz.
One Western official said that with the start-up of Fordow, Iran would send a political signal to show it will not bow to international demands to suspend uranium enrichment, an activity that can have both civilian and military uses.
Agencies contributed to this story