MINSK (Reuters) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Monday lauded Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, as a friend and vowed to join him in creating a "fighting team".

Chavez is on a world tour in part to seek support for oil-rich Venezuela's bid to win a place on the UN Security Council.

He said joint efforts would prevent "colored revolutions", a reference to mass pro-Western revolts which unseated unpopular governments in ex-Soviet Ukraine and Georgia.

"I have found yet another friend here," a beaming Chavez told reporters through an interpreter after he shared long handshakes with the Belarussian leader. "And with such a friend we will together form a team, like a soccer team. This will be a fighting team."

Washington and the EU have barred entry to Lukashenko, accused by the United States and European Union of rigging his own re-election in March and of regularly hounding opponents and closing down independent media during 12 years in office.

After talks, Chavez said only a common policy approach "can save the world from mindless wars and colored revolutions". Lukashenko's re-election, he said, had neutralized attempts to stage just such an upheaval.

"There are attempts to organize similar events in Venezuela, but you can be sure we will not permit them," he said.

Lukashenko said in reply: "We will be delighted to work with such a leader and his people".

Chavez later visited a site near Minsk known as the "Stalin line" -- fortifications constructed in the early Soviet period but over-run in the build-up to Germany's 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. Belarus suffered especially heavy wartime losses. After viewing a portrayal of events during the war, the Venezuelan leader leapt up from his seat, raced over to a group of soldiers and shouted in Russian: "Liberty or Death!"

Chavez's tour will also take him to Russia where a deal will be clinched to buy 30 Sukhoi SU-30 combat planes. Also on his itinerary are Qatar, Iran, Vietnam and Mali.

Chavez is a rare foreign visitor to Belarus from outside the former Soviet Union. Western leaders have not visited since the late 1990s.

Lukashenko, also popular among rural Belarussians, says his rejection of market reforms and tough line on dissent has spared his country the poverty and upheaval of other ex-Soviet states.