Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks during a meeting with Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan February 4, 2019. Sultan Dosaliev/Kyrgyz Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that the crisis in Venezuela could only be solved by getting the authorities and the opposition to talk to each other, the RIA news agency reported.

Major European nations on Monday joined the United States in recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president of Moscow ally Venezuela, heightening a global showdown over Nicolas Maduro’s socialist rule.

“We continue to believe that the only way to exit this crisis is by sitting the government and opposition down at the negotiating table,” Lavrov was cited as saying by RIA. “Otherwise it will simply be the same regime change that the West had done many times.”