The country’s high commissioner for peace announces in Havana the reestablishment of the dialogue process
The High Commissioner for Peace of Colombia, Ivan Danilo Ruedaannounced this Friday that his country will take the necessary steps to resume peace talks with the guerrilla group National Liberation Army (THE N).
Rueda made this announcement in Havana, where he traveled this Thursday with the Colombian Foreign Minister, Alvaro Leyva, to explore the possibility of restarting talks with the ELN.
“Both parties agree on the need to start the dialogue process” to demonstrate the “royal will” of the Colombian government and the ELN to seek “total peace”, “stable, lasting and sustainable”, he affirmed.
The high commissioner stressed that the Colombian government will adopt “all political and legal measures” to “guarantee the conditions” necessary for the resumption of talks.
Rueda added that Colombia “recognizes the legitimacy & rdquor; in the ELN’s willingness to dialogue “in the quest for peace”.
Likewise, “he has verified & rdquor; that the guerrilla also listens “the voices of multiple sectors of society” calling for a cessation of hostilities.
Rueda and Leyva’s trip took place after Petro, who took office last Sunday, reaffirmed at the beginning of the week that he will seek to resume peace talks with that guerrilla and pointed out that in the coming weeks it would be known whether those negotiations would end. will continue to carry out in Cuba.
The negotiations of the Colombian Government with the ELN began in 2017 in Quito, during the government of Juan Manuel Santos, and in 2018 they were transferred to Havana, where the main guerrilla leaders are still present, despite the fact that during the government of Iván Duque they were definitively paralyzed.
Petro has said that he wants to return to the protocol already established in the negotiations that “allows the continuation of the ELN talks there (in Havana),” but stressed that it must be the Government of Cuba that accepts to sponsor the talks again, as well as Norway its role as guarantor, or add new countries for this purpose.
The highest commander of the ELN, Eliécer Herlinto Chamorro, alias “Anthony Garcia“, he stated in an interview with the CM& news published this week that the peace negotiations should be resumed at the point where they were stalled.
The ELN, which has grown in strength During the last years, he has already shown in several communiqués that he wants to return to the negotiating table to seek peace with the Petro government.
The talks have been on hold since 2018 due to the government’s demand for Duke the ELN to free all the hostages it has in its power and to renounce this and all its criminal activities.
After the attack against the Cadet School in Bogotá in 2019, which left 22 dead and 68 wounded and it was committed by the ELN, the Colombian government asked Cuba to hand over the negotiators who are in Havana, but the island invoked diplomatic protocols to not comply with that request.