UFA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th June, 2019) A Venezuelan delegation to the annual International Meeting of High Representatives for Security Issues, hosted by the Russian city of Ufa, was "deeply honored" to meet with Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary general of Venezuela's Defense Council, Maj. Gen. Pascualino Angiolillo Fernandez, told Sputnik.
The international security meeting, currently taking place in Ufa, is organized by the Russian Security Council. Some 120 countries, including Venezuela, are attending the event.
"During this conference, we have been deeply honored to meet with Mr. Patrushev ... Now, we are seeking Russia's help in tackling the boycott, the sanctions and the counteraction which we are facing," Angiolillo Fernandez said on the sidelines of the meeting.
Venezuela is facing sanctions, in particular from the United States, which said earlier this week it was considering new measures to prevent deliveries of Venezuelan oil to Cuba to put pressure on the island nation over its support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
"There are many countries which deliver a speech and when we ask them why the reasons of ongoing crisis are not being discussed, why these measures are used against Venezuela, and people are suffering from the suffocating policy of sanctions. These countries just come here and address the meeting without wondering where the root causes of all these troubles are hidden and that is the economic blockade," the official added.
During the meeting in Ufa, the Venezuelan delegation also met with representatives from China, Iran, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba, Angiolillo Fernandez noted.
"As for our meeting with the United States, such a meeting did not happen because, frankly speaking, I have not seen them at this conference," he pointed out.
Washington, which has backed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who proclaimed himself the country's interim president, blocked some of Venezuela's oil assets and imposed sanctions on the Venezuelan state-owned oil and gas company PDVSA.
However, a number of countries, including Russia, China and Turkey, have backed Maduro as a legitimate leader of Venezuela.
