Story by Oleen Ndori
THE inaugural session of the Zimbabwe-Venezuela Joint Permanent Commission on Cooperation is being held in Caracas, Venezuela to advance cooperation between the two countries.
The first season will provide a platform to deepen economic ties between Harare and Caracas.
Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to Venezuela Mr Meshack Kitchen says the Joint Permanent Commission on Cooperation (JPCC) is critical to Zimbabwe-Venezuela relations as it provides a platform to explore cooperation in various fields such as petroleum, agriculture, and mining.
“The Honourable Minister Shava is here for the inaugural session of the Venezuela-Zimbabwe Joint Permanent Commission. This Joint Permanent Commission is very important for the relations between Zimbabwe and Venezuela because it provides a platform for discussions on how we can promote the agenda for cooperation in many fields. As we speak, the two delegations are in discussions on several possible areas of cooperation.
We do expect that at the end of the JPCC we will have concluded a number of memoranda of understanding and possibly a number of agreements that will pave the way for concrete cooperation between the two countries. What has happened so far is that we have had long-standing political and diplomatic relations with Venezuela. The idea of the Joint Permanent Commission is to translate that relationship into concrete projects, concrete areas of cooperation that will benefit the people of Zimbabwe and the people of Venezuela,” he said.
On Tuesday evening, Mr Kitchen also briefed the media on the engagement between the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Ambassador Frederick Shava, and his Venezuela counterpart, Yván Eduardo Gil Pinto in Caracas.
“The two ministers had very fruitful, cordial relations, apart from discussing cooperation at the international level, where the two countries share several common positions, including being members of the Group of Friends of the United Nations Charter, they discussed the Joint Permanent Commission. They agreed on the need to translate the relationship that I alluded to earlier into concrete cooperation. The two ministers were very clear that it is necessary, it is important, that we transform this relationship into things that benefit the people of the two countries,” he added.
Zimbabwe’s relations with Venezuela are based on ideological consensus, while the two countries support each other in the context of the Non-Aligned Movement, the G77, and China, as well as the non-politicisation of human rights issues in the United Nations General Assembly and the Geneva-based Human Rights Council.
