BRASILIA – Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Thursday directed a letter to Venezuelan opposition figures Mitzy Capriles and Lilian Tintori in which she thanked them for their efforts and said that Brazil “is tirelessly seeking a solution to (Venezuela’s) political crisis,” according to the text to which Efe received access.

Capriles and Tintori are in Brasilia, where they were received by members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, after the full upper house this week approved a censure motion against Venezuela for what it called the “arbitrary arrests” of opposition members.

Among the opposition members who have been arrested, the censure motion cited Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma and Voluntad Popular party head Leopoldo Lopez, the husbands of Capriles and Tintori who are in prison for participating in alleged “terrorist” plans supposedly aimed at toppling the government of Nicolas Maduro.

The letter sent to Capriles and Tintori came after Rousseff refused to meet with the pair, but it was signed by the head of the president’s personal cabinet, Alvaro Henrique Baggio, and said that “President Dilma Rousseff desires a quick and happy solution” to the situation in Venezuela.

It also says that the Brazilian government is working “tirelessly” to find a solution to Venezuela’s political crisis “with absolute respect for the democratic state.”

Without explaining the reasons why Rousseff did not meet with the wives of Ledezma and Lopez, the letter also said that the president thanked them for their kind references to Brazil, after Capriles and Tintori have been emphasizing the “democratic character” of Brazil’s government and its institutions.

Also, the letter said that Rousseff “thanks you for your efforts,” although without specifying if she was referring to their efforts to obtain the release of those they call political prisoners in Venezuela.

Last month, in an interview with CNN, Rousseff urged that the opposition leaders imprisoned in Venezuela be freed, although she did not distance herself from the Maduro government, with which she maintains tight cooperative links and a certain ideological affinity.

That position was later reiterated by Brazilian Vice President Michel Temer, who is in charge of political coordination for Rousseff’s administration and who said that it was “inadmissible for there to be political prisoners” in any Latin American country.