Caracas: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said that he was interested in accepting Russia's offer of help in developing a civilian nuclear power programme.

We certainly are interested in developing nuclear energy, for peaceful ends of course for medical purposes and to generate electricity, he said. Brazil has various nuclear reactors, as does Argentina, he added. We will have ours as well, he said upon his return from a tour in China and Russia.

His remarks followed comments from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow Thursday that Russia was ready to consider the possibility of nuclear energy cooperation with Caracas.

Moscow and Caracas have boosted ties in recent weeks following sharp US criticism of Russia's incursion into Georgia, with Moscow dispatching long range bombers and warships to Venezuela for exercises near US waters.

During his global tour, Chavez forged key military and energy cooperation deals which analysts said seemed likely to put him on dangerous footing with the United States.

Russia's energy ministry announced that the two countries also would form a consortium to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil and gas projects in the South American country.

Venezuela is the world's ninth biggest producer of oil, according to 2004 US government figures and is a major supplier to the United States. But Venezuela's extensive gas reserves are believed to be underdeveloped, with all of the 30 billion cubic meters that Venezuela produces every year used domestically. Russia is the second biggest oil exporter in the world and controls a quarter of global reserves of natural gas.

Source : PTI