Colombia, ELN rebels invite more countries to help in peace talks

Two sides invite Brazil, Chile and Mexico to behave as guarantors of negotiations aiming to finish many years of armed battle.

The Colombian authorities and the left-wing Nationwide Liberation Military (ELN) insurgent group have invited extra nations, together with the US, to be concerned in peace talks that started earlier this week in Venezuela.

The 2 sides agreed on Friday to ask Brazil, Chile and Mexico to hitch Cuba, Norway and Venezuela as so-called guarantor nations in negotiations that search to finish many years of armed battle within the South American nation.

The brand new spherical of talks resumed on Monday within the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, after the method was suspended in 2019.

Following per week of discussions, Colombia’s authorities and the ELN mentioned in an announcement they’ve labored in an “setting of belief and optimism”.

The negotiating groups mentioned they might invite Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and Spain to hitch the method as “accompanying nations”.

In addition they agreed to achieve out to the US through diplomatic channels “to search out out its willingness to take part within the course of” and ship a particular envoy to the negotiating desk, in line with an announcement from Norway.

The talks this week got here as Colombia marked the six-year anniversary of a peace deal that noticed members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), one other insurgent group, lay down their weapons.

However some FARC dissidents rejected the settlement and have picked up arms once more.

Violence has surged in Colombia over the previous few years, particularly in elements of the nation that lay exterior authorities management and the place armed teams are concerned in drug trafficking and different illicit actions.

President Gustavo Petro, who took workplace in August, has promised to convey “complete peace” to Colombia after practically six many years of armed violence, which left at the least 450,000 lifeless between 1985 and 2018 alone.

Earlier makes an attempt at negotiations with the ELN, the nation’s largest remaining insurgent group with roughly 2,500 combatants, haven’t superior partly due to dissent inside its ranks.

ELN leaders say the group is united, however it’s unclear how a lot sway negotiators maintain over energetic items. The group is primarily energetic within the Pacific area and alongside the two,200km (1,370-mile) border with Venezuela.

Talks between the ELN and the federal government of Juan Manuel Santos started in 2017 in Ecuador, later shifting to Cuba, however had been referred to as off in 2019 by Santos’s successor, Ivan Duque, after the ELN bombed a police academy in Bogota.

On Friday, Colombia and the ELN additionally agreed to renew humanitarian aid however didn’t supply particulars. About 30 delegates are attending the talks, that are anticipated to final three weeks.