Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first declared leftist president, wants to consistently implement a peace treaty with FARC and also wants to start talks with the country’s other armed groups. He has suspended the arrest and extradition warrants against the negotiator of the guerrilla group ELN.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro wants to resume peace talks with the guerrilla group ELN.
(dpa)
In order to resume peace talks with the guerrilla group ELN, the new Colombian President Gustavo Petro has suspended arrest and extradition warrants against their negotiators. He issued a corresponding decree, Petro said on Saturday in the northern Colombian community of San Pablo. This is the beginning of a new chance for a peace process in the South American country. He calls on other illegal groups to follow a similar path.
For 52 years, Colombia suffered from an armed conflict between armed forces, left-wing guerrilla organizations and right-wing paramilitaries. The largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), signed a peace treaty with the government in 2016 – after talks in Cuba – and laid down their arms. However, thousands of so-called FARC dissidents refused and are fighting with gangs to control the drug trade. The government broke off peace talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN) after the ELN bombed a police academy in Bogotá in 2019.
Petro, Colombia’s first declared left-wing president, has announced that he will implement the peace agreement with the FARC and will also start talks with the country’s other armed groups. A few days after taking office on August 7, the Colombian Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva and the High Commissioner for Peace, Iván Rueda, met with representatives of the ELN in Cuba. It was then said that both sides wanted to create the conditions for the resumption of peace talks.