| FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK TWITTER FLIPBOARD TELEGRAM |
Colombia’s government and National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas on Thursday announced they have agreed to deescalate fighting.
To “protect non-combatants and the civilian population from the effects of the armed conflict,” both sides agreed to “decrease the intensity of the fighting,” according to a joint statement.
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 Colombian government and the Farc rebel group have signed a historic peace accord, putting an end to more than five decades of conflict.
Both sides have agreed to work together to address social exclusion, to deliver justice to the victims of the conflict and build a stable and enduring peace.
The announcement was made in the Cuban capital, Havana, where peace talks were launched in November 2012.
Italy’s foreign minister says his government will evaluate any U.S. request to allow use of a Sicilian air base in the campaign of airstrikes against an Islamic State stronghold in Libya.
Paolo Gentiloni said in comments on state television Tuesday that use of the Sigonella base would be considered “if requested” and Parliament informed of any decision.
Colombia’s Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla force have agreed on a definitive ceasefire, taking one of the last steps towards ending Latin America’s longest civil war.
The announcement heralds an end to a half-century conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the jungles of the major cocaine-producing country.