Venezuela ’will veto’’ the final declaration due to be issued by this weekend’s Summit of the Americas, President Hugo Chávez said yesterday.

Chávez, who is in the eastern Venezuelan city of Cumaná for a pre-summit meeting with his closest allies-including Cuba’s Raúl Castro -said the communiqué had been drafted ’as if time had not passed’.

The declaration is essentially an agreement signed by the 34 member nations of the Organisation of the American states gathering in Port of Spain, Trinidad, to discuss necessary actions needed to advance common issues in the hemisphere.

The summit is being seen as an opportunity for the Obama administration to begin to repair relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. But Chávez has said the region’s more radical governments are ’preparing their artillery’. The exclusion of Cuba will be one of their main objections.

It is unclear whether the other members of the so-called ALBA alliance-which includes Nicaragua, Honduras, Bolivia and Dominica-will take a similar position on the declaration.

’Technically speaking, no one country can ’veto’ such a declaration,’’ said Virginia Contreras, a former Venezuelan ambassador to the Organisation of American States.