Caracas, Jan 14 (DPA) Oil-rich Iran and Venezuela expanded their anti-US strategic alliance with leaders of the two countries signing 11 new bilateral agreements and pledging to boost the price of oil.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived Saturday in Caracas for his second such visit in four months to meet with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

After the two met at the government palace, Chavez noted the deep relationship between the two countries and said one can speak of a "single fatherland" when speaking of Iran and Venezuela.

The Iranian people will "stand side to side with Venezuela" for now and evermore, Ahmadinejad vowed. "We are spreading revolutionary thought throughout the world."

Ahmadinejad is later scheduled to travel to Nicaragua, where Daniel Ortega was inaugurated as president earlier this week, and to Monday's inauguration in Ecuador of leftist populist Rafael Correa, a Chavez admirer in the oil-rich but otherwise impoverished country.

The new Iran-Venezuela agreements call for more intense cooperation on energy, industry, trade and building construction. Last year, Ahmadinejad offered to help Venezuela develop its nuclear power industry.

During his September visit to Venezuela, the two men signed 28 cooperation agreements, with heavy focus on energy and economy. The two countries plan to start cooperative oil companies, and factories to produce cement, airplanes, bikes, automobiles and gunpowder.

The presidents agreed to speed up the establishment of a $2-billion bilateral fund to invest in countries that join their anti-US alliance and free themselves from the "yoke of imperialism", Chavez said.

The two leaders also pledged mutual support in foreign affairs, including efforts to keep oil prices high by lowering production from the oil cartel, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Iran and Venezuela are the world's fourth and fifth most important oil exporting nations.

Ahmadinejad charged that "all problems of the world are caused by the false policies of the most powerful countries" that have caused poverty, conflict, discrimination and injustice.

Chavez compared his Bolivarian revolution, under which he has been building a Latin American base to confront the US, with the Islamic revolution that governs Iran.

During last year's visit, Chavez declared his "unlimited support" for Iran's controversial nuclear programme. Iran is developing a nuclear programme for peaceful purposes, he insisted.

--DPA