CARACAS: President Nicolas Maduro's government and Venezuela's main opposition group agreed on Tuesday to begin formal talks intended to halt the nation's worst political unrest in a decade.
Representatives of the Vatican and South American regional bloc Unasur have been invited to mediate.
Clashes between security forces and pro-government militants on one side, and hooded opposition demonstrators blocking streets on the other, have killed 39 people since mid-February, according to official figures.
Maduro, the 51-year-old successor to Hugo Chavez, led the government team at Tuesday's preliminary talks that were the first sit-down with the Democratic Unity (MUD) opposition coalition since the troubles began.
"We are sending a good signal to our country by sitting down to talk, converse and resolve our differences," Vice President Jorge Arreaza said after the meeting in a 17th century colonial building that houses the foreign ministry.
"We're not trying to convince the opposition to become 'Chavistas' nor are they trying to convince us to abandon the path of the revolution and socialism," he added.
Formal talks would begin in the next few hours, with Venezuela's crime and economic problems high on the agenda, he said. Those issues have been high on the litany of complaints from demonstrators in the streets since early February.
Comments
Comments are closed.