Venezuela holds third round of talks on political future

Venezuela’s interim government on Wednesday began a third round of talks with opposition representatives on a democratic transition, a senior US Department of State official said.

The US-sponsored talks on transitioning from the rule of ousted former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro began in August.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the latest negotiations would focus on “the political process, on elections, on involvement of different political parties and other things like that.”

Venezuelan officials attend political talks in Caracas on Wednesday.

Photo: EPA

The current talks are expected to last until the end of next week, he said.

Washington is under pressure to organize democratic elections following its January ouster of Maduro.

It nudged interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez, a former Maduro loyalist who was his vice president, to negotiate with an opposition delegation led by Dinorah Figuera.

Figuera led a political bloc that won a majority in the 2015 Venezuelan National Assembly, the last legislature elected in a vote widely recognized by the international community.

Exiled opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has been sidelined from the negotiations.

The State Department official highlighted “concrete progress” in the first two rounds of talks on issues including “reforms towards an independent supreme court, Web site access and reform of repressive laws.”

The third round would continue “building the structural framework and institutions necessary for elections and a democratic transition,” he added.

Maduro oversaw an increasingly authoritarian government, marked by two re-elections widely dismissed as fraudulent.

He and his wife were captured by US forces in a raid on Caracas in January, and flown to New York to face trial.

Since taking over, Rodriguez has released hundreds of political prisoners and closed the El Helicoide detention center, where rights groups say inmates were tortured.

Her government has also announced plans to reform the judiciary and unblocked some news sites that had been censored for years.