WORLD NEWS | Colombian government resumes peace talks with rebels in Mexico

MEXICO CITY, Feb. 13 (AP) — Colombia’s government and its largest rebel group met in Mexico City on Monday to resume peace talks aimed at resolving a conflict dating back to the 1960s.

It was the second round talks with the communist-inspired National Liberation Army, known as ELN, in negotiations launched in November shortly after President Gustavo Petro was elected as Colombia’s first leftist president.

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The first three weeks of talks in the Venezuelan capital have yielded little.

Negotiations between the two sides were suspended in 2019 after a rebel attack on a police academy in Bogota killed 23 people.

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José Otty Patiño, a representative of the Colombian government, said the latest round of talks should result in “a permanent solution … rather than a temporary truce”.

Pablo Beltrán, the rebel’s chief negotiator, said the aim of the talks was to achieve a “temporary nationwide ceasefire” and that any agreement should include “an alternative drug policy no longer based on repression and war”.

Founded in 1964, ELN is located in some 200 communes in Colombia and is headquartered in areas where cocaine production is widespread.

Petro said the peace talks with the ELN were the cornerstone of his plan to bring “comprehensive peace” to the country of 50 million people, where some rural areas remain under the control of drug gangs and rebel groups despite a 2016 peace deal with the ELN. under control. The Greater Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The National Liberation Army has about 4,000 troops in Colombia and neighboring Venezuela, and human rights groups have reported that it runs drug routes and illegal gold mines.

Founded by intellectuals inspired by the Cuban Revolution, the rebel group is generally smaller than the FARC.

But in recent years the ELN has grown in influence in rural Colombia, abandoned by FARC rebels after making peace with the government.

The ELN leadership expressed concern about Petro’s plans for a “total peace” with drug cartels and rebels, saying the two groups should not be treated equally.

Petro has said his government will not negotiate with drug traffickers and they will have to face justice.

Andrés Macias, who studies armed conflict at Colombia’s Externado University, said the ELN had political goals “at least when it was formed” and feared falling with powerful cartels such as the Colombian Gulf Bloc.

Mexico, Norway, Venezuela, Chile and Cuba acted as guarantors in the ELN peace talks. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)