Port of Spain  - With two broad grins on their faces, the presidents of Venezuela and the United States greeted each other with a traditional "solidarity" handshake Friday.

Hugo Chavez and Barack Obama were seen in an informal, animated exchange and sideways handshake in a series of photographs released just as the Summit of the Americas got underway in Trinidad.

The gestures melted eight years of frost between the two countries - a time span when Chavez taunted former president George W Bush as the personification of evil and Satan. (dpa)