Venezuela thanks Russia for coronavirus cooperation

ANKARA Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro thanked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Monday for his cooperation and medical aid amid the coronavirus outbreak. "I just finished an important phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin," Maduro said on Twitter. "On behalf of Venezuelans, I thanked him for his cooperation and humanitarian aid to face the COVID-19 pandemic and protect the health of the people." Putin also "guaranteed new shipments of health supplies" to Venezuela and expressed a "greater" need of joint efforts between two countries, to handle the pandemic, Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "Both leaders condemned the continued illegal and inhumane unilateral coercive measures during times so difficult for humanity," it added. Maduro and Putin also discussed the situation in the oil market and recent agreement of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). They agreed to fully support the OPEC + mechanism, which will be effective from May 1. OPEC and its allies have reached a final agreement on April 12 to cut their collective oil production by a record level of 10 million barrels per day (bpd) starting from next month to balance the oil market. Although the tally of coronavirus-related cases and deaths in Venezuela is not as alarming as the rest of the world, the country has been in precipitous decline following a global downturn in the price of crude oil, the country's main export item. Due to dire economic crisis and political crisis between Maduro and the opposition leader Juan Guaido -- since the beginning of 2019, already nearly 5 million Venezuelans fled their homeland. The country also has been under firm U.S. economic and diplomatic sanctions for more than a year as Washington recognizes Guaido as the country's legitimate ruler instead of elected President Maduro. According to the running tally of U.S. based Johns Hopkins University, Venezuela has 256 coronavirus cases and nine fatalities, with 117 recoveries so far.