Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday said he was seeking more Vatican help to try to jump-start political talks with the opposition.

"A meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican is being worked on. I hope it can be worked out," the embattled president said during his Sunday program on state television.

Venezuela's leader Nicolas Maduro named an ex-security minister Wednesday as his vice-president, who would become head of state if Maduro were removed from office this year as the opposition demands.

Maduro told a televised cabinet meeting that he had named to the post Tareck El Aissami, 42, a powerful state governor who cracked down on drug gangs in his time as a minister.

Venezuela's opposition said Saturday it would not resume stalled talks with the government next month over their country's grave crisis because a number of demands had not been met.

"Conditions do not exist for the return to direct dialogue between the parties on January 13," the secretary of the MUD opposition coalition, Jesus Torrealba, said.

Venezuelans are running short of food, medicine and patience, but fear not: President Nicolas Maduro is here to cheer them up -- by dancing salsa.

Grinning under his black mustache, the burly, towering socialist swivels his hips and twirls his wife Cilia Flores in front of the cameras.

Venezuela's political rivals are to sit down at the negotiating table Friday to resume fraught talks on the country's volatile crisis.

Socialist President Nicolas Maduro and his opponents declared a "truce" 10 days ago to ease tension in a country struck by food shortages.

Venezuela's opposition began a tense truce Wednesday with President Nicolas Maduro, but supporters accused it of betraying them amid warnings the strategy might backfire.

With Pope Francis' blessing, Maduro and top opposition leaders have agreed to sit down to Vatican-mediated talks starting November 11, seeking an exit from a nasty political crisis and economic melt-down.

Venezuela's opposition ratcheted up the pressure on President Nicolas Maduro at mass protests on Wednesday, announcing plans for a new march and general strike.

Opposition leaders called a 12-hour general strike for Friday and vowed to use their legislative majority to issue a declaration holding the elected socialist accountable for his handling of a severe economic crisis.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accused the opposition-majority legislature Tuesday of staging a "parliamentary coup" after lawmakers voted to put him on trial amid a tense political and economic crisis.

Accused by the legislature of "abandoning his post" and "criminal and political responsibility" for Venezuela's descent into crisis, Maduro fired back by calling a meeting of his National Defense Council on Wednesday -- the same day the opposition plans massive anti-government protests.

Venezuela's government Monday proposed talks to ease the country's political crisis after Pope Francis intervened, but an opposition leader branded it a ploy by President Nicolas Maduro to cling to power.

The move had aimed to calm tensions after the opposition accused the socialist president of staging a "coup d'etat" by blocking its bid for a vote on removing him.

Venezuela's opposition-majority legislature declared Sunday that President Nicolas Maduro's government had committed a coup d'etat by blocking a referendum on removing him from power, vowing mass protests and international pressure.

Furious over the electoral authorities' decision to suspend the process of organizing a recall vote, opposition lawmakers passed a resolution declaring "the breakdown of constitutional order" and "a coup d'etat committed by the Nicolas Maduro regime."