The international community should respect Iran's sovereignty and prevent a possible U.S. attack against that country, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said Sunday on a television and radio show.

"We defend the sovereignty of all nations in the world, and that is why we demand respect for Iran's sovereignty, which is in the first line of a U.S. attack," he said.

Chavez made the remarks in Hato Calleja, 630 km southeast of Caracas, in response to Russian media reports that suggested the United States would attack Iran on April 6.

He said that everyone must act to hold back the United States because "it could be Iran today, and it could be any other nation that they don't like tomorrow."

Just as the U.S. has a plan to attack Iran, it also has a plan to attack Venezuela that could be activated at any moment, he said.

He also said he hoped that "the U.S. people, Congress and other world powers can be influential in holding back the madness of U.S. imperialism."

Source: Xinhua