(MOSCOW) — More than a week into a standoff with the opposition, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Wednesday he was willing to negotiate.

Violent street demonstrations erupted last week after opposition leader Juan Guaido declared during a major opposition rally in Caracas that he had assumed presidential powers under the constitution and planned to call fresh elections to end Maduro’s “dictatorship.”

Maduro had rejected negotiations, but said in an interview with Russia’s state-owned RIA Novosti news agency that he was open to talks with the opposition.

“I’m willing to sit down for talks with the opposition so that we could talk for the sake of Venezuela’s peace and its future,” he said.

Maduro said other countries could mediate, mentioning Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia, the Vatican and Russia as possible candidates.

Maduro also accused U.S. President Donald Trump of ordering a hit on him from Colombia. He said he was aware of Trump’s alleged “orders” for the Colombian governme..

Notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was a ruthless murderer who regularly resorted to violence and corruption to defend the multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise he led, prosecutors said Wednesday during closing arguments in the Mexican kingpin’s U.S. trial.

In the government’s final address to the jury before deliberations, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Goldbarg spent about six hours reminding jurors of the more than 55 testimonies they’ve heard since mid-November. Goldbarg began by recalling a brutal tale of vengeance in which Guzman allegedly gunned down two rivals in the Sinaloa mountains before ordering his henchmen to toss their bodies in a bonfire that raged nearby.

“This is how he built his empire and protected it,” Goldbarg said.

Guzman, 61, is accused of trafficking $14 billion worth of drugs into the U.S. as the leader of the Sinaloa cartel. He is perhaps most famous for bolting from two top-security Mexican prisons. In 2001, he first escaped from the Puente..