(Bogotá) The Colombian government and the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) will hold an “extraordinary” meeting on Wednesday in Caracas within the framework of the peace negotiations to discuss in particular the imbroglio around the suspended ceasefire in early January, the two parties announced on Saturday.
“The Colombian government delegation salutes the hospitality of Venezuela, which is hosting an extraordinary meeting with the ELN delegation next week,” official negotiator Otty Patiño told reporters, adding that the cessation of hostilities will be at the heart of the discussion.
The Colombian government and the ELN will meet again “in mid-February” in Mexico, Patiño added.
On Twitter, the National Liberation Army (ELN) confirmed the date of the meeting and the resumption of negotiations, stalled since the rebels denied the six-month ceasefire announced by President Gustavo Petro in New Year’s Day.
This dialogue will aim to find a way out of the “crisis” generated by Mr. Petro’s blunder and to discuss the “harmonious continuity of the second cycle” of the peace talks, according to the guerrillas.
The truce pronounced by the government concerned, in addition to the ELN, the two main factions of the FARC dissident (the Segunda Marquetalia and the Central Staff), the AGC (Gaitanist Self-Defense militias of Colombia, extreme paramilitaries right) and the Clan del Golfo, the biggest drug gang in the country.
Only the ELN has publicly denied its existence.
Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president, launched an ambitious policy of so-called “total peace”, the objective of which is to negotiate with the dissident rebels of the FARC (who reject the peace agreement signed in 2016), as well as than with other armed groups, which are fighting over cocaine trafficking.