2023-10-17 22:10:03
CARACAS (AP) — The government of Venezuela and a sector of the opposition resumed talks suspended for a year on Tuesday and signed two partial agreements on the promotion of political rights and electoral guarantees for all, a few days before the opposition primaries. on Sunday and ahead of the 2024 presidential elections. In a ceremony in Barbados, broadcast on Venezuelan state television, headed by both delegations and the representative of Norway, the rapprochements were reported and the agreements reached were read.
They were signed by Jorge Rodríguez, head of the Nicolás Maduro government delegation and president of the National Assembly controlled by the ruling party, and by Gerardo Blyde, representative of the so-called Democratic Unitary Platform, an opposition bloc that since 2021 has tried to dialogue in Mexico with representatives of the Venezuelan government.
The opposition holds primary elections on Sunday to elect a unitary candidate to face Nicolás Maduro in the 2024 presidential elections.
The resumption of the dialogues – under the mediation of Norway – which had been suspended since November 2022, was formalized on the Caribbean island of Barbados.
Dag Nylander, representing the Norwegian government, expressed his satisfaction that the dialogue table has achieved “significant progress on essential issues.” He highlighted that there is still a long way to go to overcome polarization and confrontation, but it is the starting point towards establishing “clear rules of political and social coexistence in Venezuela.”
It is expected that, after the signing of the agreements that aim to comply with and promote “clear rules of political and social coexistence in Venezuela,” Washington will ease—eventually to the extent that it verifies its progress—some of the economic and energy sanctions against the Maduro administration.
“This is the first step of a much broader agreement that is in full evolution,” Rodríguez said, without giving details, in a statement broadcast on Venezuelan state television.
“In the coming days we will be able to see some of the results that have as a corollary the agreement that was affirmed today,” he added, in a national context of long social, political and economic crisis that forced seven million people to migrate. .
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