AFP: The government of Nicolas Maduro and the Venezuelan opposition broke a political stalemate Saturday with a broad social accord, and the US government responded by allowing a major US oil company to resume operations in Venezuela.
The accord heralded a potential easing of a grinding economic and political crisis in Venezuela.
It paves the way for the United Nations to oversee a trust fund of frozen assets of the Maduro government to be used for a variety of social projects in the South American country, including programs related to education, health, food security, flood response and electricity.
“We have identified a set of resources belonging to the Venezuelan state, frozen in the global financial system, to which it is possible to access,” said Dag Nylander, an envoy from Norway, which facilitated the negotiations. The amount to be released was not specified. The agreement, signed in Mexico, ended 15 months of stalemate between the two sides, potentially easing a massive flow of refugees from Venezuela throughout the region and even impacting world oil markets.
Maduro praised the deal on Twitter, saying it “opens the way for a new chapter for Venezuela, to keep advancing towards the peace and well-being that all Venezuelans yearn for.”