Colombia’s government on Friday gave the green light to the resumption of peace talks with the largest rebel force in the country, a key election promise that brought leftist President Gustavo Petro to power. Colombian government officials met Friday with members of the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Havana, where they have been based since 2018, with Bogota claiming to officially recognize the “legitimacy of dialogue (…) in the search for peace“.
“Both parties agree on the need to relaunch a process of dialogue with facts that show Colombian society and the world that this will is realsaid High Commissioner for Peace Danilo Rueda. Officials from Norway and Cuba, the guarantors of the talks, were present as well as envoys from the UN Secretary General and the Colombian Episcopal Conference.
Read alsoColombia: Gustavo Petro, the guerrilla president
President Petro, a former rebel who has pledged to continue negotiations, has said he wants to reach new peace agreements with the ELN and other armed organizations, as well as an end to the “war on drugs», which he considers a failure. Previous talks failed to move beyond the exploratory stage after right-wing ex-president Ivan Duque came to power in August 2018.
After Havana’s announcement on Friday, the Colombian government announced the release of nine people who had been detained by the ELN since July 13 in the department of Arauca, on the border with Venezuela.
The ELN, the last recognized guerrilla in the country after the disarmament of the FARC, expressed its intention to negotiate with Gustavo Petro shortly after his election. Hundreds of dissidents from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), continued fighting after their comrades laid down their arms under a 2016 peace deal that ended more than half a century of conflict armed. Despite this agreement, Colombia has seen an outbreak of violence due to fighting between dissidents, the ELN, paramilitary forces and drug cartels.