Russia Interested In Maintaining Economic Ties With Venezuela - Lavrov

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 06th June, 2019) Russia is interested in maintaining its economic relations with Venezuela and would like the Venezuelan leadership to fully preserve its obligations toward Moscow amid the political and economic crises in the country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview released on Thursday.

"As for Venezuela, we have economic interests there, too. They are not as large as China's [interests] but they are rather significant. Our energy and other companies are working there. We have contracts in the defense industry cooperation under which we provide maintenance and armament which have been exported since the early 2000s. We are, of course, interested in these economic ties to be preserved and in the obligations toward us, taken by the Venezuelan leadership, to be fully preserved," Lavrov said in the interview with RBC.

The Kremlin aide, Yury Ushakov, has said that Russia maintained normal cooperation with the existing government of Venezuela amid a political crisis in the country.

The situation in Venezuela remains tense since January when opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself an interim president. Washington and its allies endorsed Guaido and called on President Nicolas Maduro to step down. Moreover, the United States seized billions of Dollars' worth of Venezuelan oil assets.

Maduro, in turn, has accused the United States of trying to orchestrate a coup in order to install Guaido as its puppet and take over Venezuela's natural resources.

Russia, China, Cuba, Bolivia, Turkey and a number of other countries have voiced their support for Maduro as the only legitimate president of Venezuela.