Six months after U.S. special forces carried out a dawn raid on Caracas that removed then-Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and transported him to New York to face long-standing drug-trafficking charges, the country’s interim administration has scheduled formal negotiations with a faction of the political opposition to kick off on August 1. The landmark talks, announced jointly by opposition representatives and the government-aligned National Assembly led by Jorge Rodríguez, comes as Venezuela grapples with the human and economic aftermath of devastating twin earthquakes that struck the country’s northern coastal region on June 24. As of mid-July, official counts confirm at least 4,734 fatalities from the disaster, with the death toll projected to climb further as rescue crews continue pulling bodies from the rubble of thousands of collapsed structures. Rodríguez, whose sister Delcy, a former Maduro vice president who has aligned with the U.S. government, currently holds the interim presidency, framed the negotiations as a necessary step for national recovery. “Only through unity can we move forward with reconstruction and maintain peace,” he said in a brief public statement, pointing directly to the widespread destruction caused by the earthquakes as the catalyst for opening dialogue. The opposition participating in the talks, a bloc of former lawmakers who won a National Assembly majority in 2015 — the last election widely recognized as free and fair for opposition parties — has framed the negotiations as a step toward building a democratic roadmap for the country. Dinorah Figuera, a former opposition legislator who returned to Venezuela in June after nearly eight years in exile, will lead the opposition negotiating team. Figuera confirmed upon her arrival in Caracas that she came at the invitation of the U.S. State Department, with a core goal of pushing for sweeping reform of the National Electoral Council (CNE), the body that oversees Venezuelan elections. The CNE has for years been controlled by hardline Maduro loyalists, and it drew widespread international condemnation after the 2024 presidential election when it declared Maduro the winner, despite independent observer vote tallies confirming a landslide victory for opposition candidate Edmundo González. In its official statement released Tuesday, the opposition bloc laid out its clear priorities for the talks: strengthening democratic institutions, overhauling the flawed electoral system, and establishing ironclad guarantees for full political participation for all factions across the country. For decades under Maduro’s United Socialist Party (PSUV), opposition figures and government critics faced systematic persecution: thousands were jailed, and hundreds of thousands fled into exile. Even after Maduro’s ouster earlier this year, 372 political opponents remain incarcerated, according to ongoing tallies from Venezuelan prisoners’ rights organization Foro Penal. The announcement of talks also brings to light a growing divide within Venezuela’s opposition coalition, and a clear preference from the Trump administration for Figuera’s faction over the movement led by María Corina Machado, the most prominent Venezuelan opposition leader. Machado, who was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her work advocating for democratic transition in Venezuela, secretly fled the country in late 2025 to accept the prize, and has not been permitted to return despite repeated attempts. She dedicated her Nobel honor to U.S. President Donald Trump, but the Trump administration has nevertheless backed Figuera as the lead negotiator, rather than Machado. Machado attempted to re-enter Venezuela shortly after the June earthquakes, but was turned away at the border. While Trump has denied his administration blocked her entry, U.S. media outlets have cited anonymous senior administration officials describing Machado’s return attempt as “potentially disruptive” to ongoing post-earthquake rescue and reconstruction efforts. Machado has not yet issued a public comment on the newly announced talks, but has called a meeting of her opposition coalition for Wednesday to discuss the next steps for her faction.