Madrid - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday commented on the new look of Spain's King Juan Carlos, saying the monarch's short beard reminded him of Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro. "You have grown a beard, like Fidel," Chavez joked on meeting the king during a brief visit to Madrid.
"I just wanted to change my look a bit," the monarch replied.
The relations between Spain and Venezuela cooled in November 2007, when Juan Carlos told Chavez "to shut up" after the Venezuelan leader slammed former Spanish premier Jose Maria Aznar as a "fascist" at an Ibero-American summit in Chile.
Tension subsided when the king received Chavez in July 2008.
