Colombia: National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels ready to start peace talks with government
Colombia’s leftwing ELN rebels have said they are ready to start formal peace talks with the government and resolve issues that have so far stymied the negotiations announced in March.
The ELN’s announcement comes two days after Colombia’s center-right government and the Marxist Farc rebel group signed a peace deal to end a half-century war that killed a quarter of a million people and once took the Andean country to the brink of collapse.
The leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels and the government had announced peace talks in March, but the negotiations have been delayed by the rebels’ continued kidnappings and infrastructure attacks.
On Tuesday, President Juan Manuel Santos called on the ELN, Colombia’s second biggest rebel group with some 2,000 in its ranks, to free hostages and start the formal negotiation process. The government said the group was holding at least four hostages.