Russia Expresses Readiness to Cooperate With Venezuela's Newly Elected National Assembly

Russia reiterates its commitment to cooperation and strengthening relations with the newly elected National Assembly in Venezuela, the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Wednesday. 

"We confirm our readiness to cooperate closely with friendly Venezuela, its people and legitimate authorities. We will keep on strengthening our strategic partnership which has been developing in a variety of fields of mutual interest," the statement reads.

Zakharova added that Moscow finds it important to boost cooperation between the Russian Federation Council and the newly elected National Assembly of Venezuela. 

This comes after the new Venezuelan parliament was inaugurated on Tuesday, following the December 6 elections that brought victory to the Simon Bolivar Great Patriotic Poll with 253 seats, or 91.34 percent of all seats. The alliance of Venezuelan socialist parties is led by the United Socialist Party headed by President Nicolas Maduro. The elections were boycotted by US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido’s bloc. The EU has said that the elections were neither free nor fair. The US and Canada refused to recognise the results either.