Venezuelan opposition member arrested after return from exile

Venezuelan police on Thursday arrested a former opposition mayor, on the same day the government began a second round of talks with political rivals on a democratic transition.

Javier Oropeza, former mayor of the northwestern city of Torres, was detained by intelligence officers after giving an interview to a local newspaper two days after returning to Venezuela from exile in Spain.

His arrest coincided with the start of a new round of negotiations between the interim government and opposition members pushing for democratic elections, eight months after the US overthrow of president Nicolas Maduro.

The head of the opposition delegation, Dinorah Figuera, said the group had denounced Oropeza's arrest to the authorities and received assurances that he would be promptly freed.

"We will be vigilant until it is fulfilled; all political prisoners must be released," she wrote on X.

The US-backed talks between the government, composed mostly of former Maduro loyalists, and the opposition aim to set a roadmap for a political transition and restoration of full political and civic freedoms.

Exiled opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who has been sidelined from the negotiations, accused the administration of interim President Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro's former deputy, of kidnapping Oropeza.

"This is the nature of this regime. That is why the entire country detests them. And that is why we will defeat them," Machado wrote in a defiant message on X.

Venezuela suffered a wave of repression after Maduro's widely disputed claim to have won re-election in July 2024.

Many opposition members fled the country, while others were imprisoned.

But since US forces snatched Maduro from his Caracas compound in January and flew him to the United States to face trial, the crackdown on the opposition and dissidents has eased.