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Ammon News - The government of Nicolas Maduro and the Venezuelan opposition broke a political stalemate on Saturday with a broad social accord, and the US government responded by allowing a major US oil company to resume operations in the country.

The accord heralded a potential easing of a grinding economic and political crisis in Venezuela.

It paves the way for the UN 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 programmes 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 affecting world oil markets.

Mr 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”.

UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was committed to supporting the parties, calling the breakthrough “an important milestone that has the potential to deliver broader benefits for the people of Venezuela”.

The US Treasury Department said the accord marks “important steps in the right direction to restore democracy” in Venezuela and responded by issuing a license to US international oil company Chevron to resume limited oil extraction operations in the country.