Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday reiterated to his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolás Maduro support for “all the legitimate authorities” of the Latin American country.
Putin also backed the idea of dialogue between the Venezuelan government and the opposition, Efe news reported.
“Russia consistently supports all the legitimate power organs of Venezuela, including its presidency and its parliament,” Putin said at the start of a meeting with Maduro in the Kremlin.
He added that Russia supported dialogue between Maduro’s government and the opposition forces.
Putin said “any renunciation of the dialogue is considered irrational, harmful to the country and would constitute a threat to the welfare of the population”.
Maduro said that Moscow and Caracas “have shown that they can overcome any difficulty together”.
“We support cooperation in various fields,” the Venezuelan leader said.
“In May 2018, a meeting of the high-level intergovernmental commission was held and many of the issues discussed in that commission were successfully resolved”.
Maduro said the meeting with Putin would allow the pair to take stock of the work done this year, “examine what problems persist, what realities the two sides face, how progress is done in a number of areas and design future plans.”
The Russian president said: “all work is progressing according to the planned schedule, in full compliance with our agreements”.
Putin said that supplies of Russian agricultural products to Venezuela could be seen as humanitarian cooperation in the midst of the severe economic crisis gripping the country.
He also announced he would be sending about 1.5 million doses of flu vaccines to Venezuela and planned to provide up to 5 million doses on a regular basis.
Putin was satisfied with trade between the two nations having increased by 10 per cent in recent months.
He reaffirmed technical-military cooperation with Venezuela, the largest buyer of Russian weapons and military equipment in Latin America, particularly when it comes to the supply of spare parts and service centres.
Contracts in this field between Russia and Venezuela have an estimated worth of about $11 billion.
Putin also mentioned Russian investments in Venezuela’s energy industry and said Russia had invested about $4 billion in its economy.