The US on Thursday praised the conclusion of the latest round of talks towards a democratic transition between Venezuela’s interim government and opposition representatives.
The US-backed talks on moving away from the hardline socialist rule of ousted former president Nicolas Maduro got underway in August.
Washington faces pressure to hold democratic elections after removing Maduro in January.
It encouraged interim President Delcy Rodriguez, a former Maduro loyalist who served as his vice president, to engage in negotiations with an opposition delegation headed by Dinorah Figuera.
“I welcome and recognize the efforts of the parties sitting at this dialogue table to move forward in the area of political guarantees for everyone,” Rodriguez said at the end of Thursday’s meeting with the opposition, held at the presidential palace.
Figuera headed a political bloc that secured a majority in the 2015 National Assembly, the most recent legislature chosen in an election broadly acknowledged by the international community.
The third round of talks “delivered tangible results, including an agreement to work to review and revise several repressive laws to increase political and social freedom and guarantee the participation of all political actors,” the US State Department said in a statement.
It also welcomed progress on “rebuilding an independent Supreme Court.”
According to the statement, since the talks began, the process has bolstered press freedoms, reopened access to more than 70 previously blocked websites, “produced an agreement to recover gold holdings in the Bank of England for earthquake relief, and advanced efforts to reform the repressive Law Against Hatred.”
The statement further noted that the Trump administration remains committed to backing a Venezuelan-led process aimed at a peaceful democratic transition.
Exiled opposition leader Maria Machado has been excluded from the negotiations, and on Thursday thousands of people protested in Caracas and other cities, demanding that she be allowed to return to the country.
