CARACAS, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Turkey is willing to accept Venezuela's cryptocurrency Petro as trade tender, visiting Foreign Affairs Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Friday.
"We recognize the creation of the Petro and we think it's very good," said the envoy. "Yes, we can use the Petro, and we would be very pleased to do so."
Cavusoglu added that Washington uses the U.S. dollar, the dominant currency in global trade transactions, to attack governments it disagrees with, leading Turkey and other countries to adopt a policy of accepting local currencies in trade exchanges.
"Given that the U.S. government has used the dollar as a weapon, numerous countries are opting to use local currencies," he said, lauding Venezuela's initiative to move away from the dollar by launching its own digital currency.
Earlier this year, Venezuela launched the first cryptocurrency in the world to be backed by a nation's natural resources in a bid to overcome U.S.-imposed sanctions that cut off its access to capital markets.
