VENEZUELAN President Nicolas Maduro has moved to put parliament back on a legal footing as a prelude to resuming talks with the opposition.

The president told viewers of his Sundays with Maduro show that he had asked the Dialogue Commission chief, former vice-president Jorge Rodriguez, to draw up a document in agreement with the Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mud) coalition to “facilitate the legalisation of the national assembly.”

The National Justice Tribunal (TSJ), Venezuela’s highest court, declared the Mud-controlled assembly to be operating unconstitutionally last year after it swore in three MPs who had been suspended over allegations of electoral fraud.

Talks begun late last year broke down last month after the Mud refused to attend until the government released leaders imprisoned for their part in the 2014 “guarimba” regime-change riots, in which 43 people died.

Mr Maduro said: “I have received information that important sectors of the Mud want to regularise their situation constitutionally and comply fully and absolutely with the TSJ ruling.”

And he did not rule out the prospect of a meeting between the government, opposition and Pope Francis at the Vatican, one of several international institutions mediating the stalled negotiations.

But a member of the pro-government Great Patriotic Pole parliamentary coalition warned yesterday morning that divisions in the opposition ranks would prevent a return to talks. Podemos party vice-president Ali Alvarado pointed out on Globovision’s Front Page programme that the Mud had rejected Mr Maduro’s previous invitations.