BOGOTA (Reuters) – President Juan Manuel Santos called yesterday for the smaller of Colombia’s two leftist rebel groups, the ELN, to join the larger FARC guerrillas in declaring a unilateral ceasefire as peace talks advance to end a 50-year war.
The government has been in exploratory talks with the National Liberation Army or ELN, aiming to start negotiations similar to the two-year-old talks under way in Cuba with the FARC.
“We wish to invite the ELN to join this initiative of a unilateral ceasefire like the FARC has done and invite them to reach an agreement as soon as possible on the agenda points we have been discussing for some time,” Santos said in a statement.
The government and the ELN announced last June in a joint statement that they have been meeting in secret to agree on the agenda of eventual negotiations.
