President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuelaand leaders of a coalition of opposition political parties held a dramatic televised meeting on Thursday in a first step aimed at defusing tensions that have escalated during more than two months of antigovernment protests.
The meeting was brokered by a group of South American foreign ministers who exerted pressure on both sides to come to the table in the hopes of averting further violence in the protests, which have cost 40 lives, according to a government count. Underscoring the urgency of the situation, local news media reported that a police officer in Barquisimeto, a city in western Venezuela, died after being shot on Wednesday night in a confrontation that appeared to be linked to a protest.
The ministers were trying to get Venezuelans to do what they had not been able to do on their own: bridge the country’s bitter political rift.
Although the mere fact that the two sides sat down to talk in Miraflores, the presidential palace in Caracas, was significant in a deeply polarized nation, it was not clear that the participants viewed the encounter as much more than a chance to score propaganda points on television.
The gravity of the event was highlighted by the presence of the foreign ministers of Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador. The Vatican’s ambassador to Venezuela, Archbishop Aldo Giordano, also sat in and read a letter from Pope Francis urging the two sides to find common ground.
“Let’s take the way of tolerance,” Mr. Maduro said. “Let’s look for a model of coexistence that permits Venezuelan democracy to become stronger.”
Ramón Guillermo Aveledo, the leader of the opposition coalition called the Democratic Unity Table, responded, “Something is wrong when a meeting between government and opposition is unusual.” He added, “It is fair that the country hear another voice.”
The protests began in early February when students demonstrated over the country’s high level of violent crime. The demonstrations soon expanded to include other segments of society and other grievances, from high inflation and shortages of food and basic goods to long-running opposition resentment at being cut out almost entirely from political influence at the national level.
That resentment began during the 14-year presidency of Hugo Chávez, the charismatic leader who started the country’s socialist-inspired revolution. It has grown further since Mr. Chávez’s death last year as Mr. Maduro has vowed to continue Mr. Chávez’s legacy.
From the start of the demonstrations, Mr. Maduro denounced the protesters, saying they were violent fascists trying to overthrow him.
At the same time, however, he said he wanted dialogue and created a series of what he called peace conferences, which often turned into pep rallies of government supporters.
Some business leaders and opposition politicians took part, but student groups and the Democratic Unity Table refused, saying that the meetings were empty photo opportunities for the government.
But as the violence worsened and the body count increased, concern rose among Venezuela’s neighbors. A regional group, the Union of South American Nations, sent a delegation of foreign ministers, which met late last month with the government and the opposition.
The foreign ministers returned this week, and soon the two sides announced they had agreed to begin talks.
Yet the two camps went into the talks without showing much inclination to bend.
“No negotiation, no deals; what we have here is a debate, a dialogue, which is different from a negotiation,” Mr. Maduro said Tuesday. “I would be a traitor if I start to negotiate the revolution.”
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