FARC, Colombian Peace Negotiators to Meet Tuesday
Delegates from the Colombian government and leftist guerrilla group FARC will meet Tuesday in Cuba to discuss resuming peace talks after the rebels released five army captives, President Juan Manuel Santos said.
Santos suspended the two-year-old peace talks on November 16 over the FARC's capture of Brigadier General Ruben Alzate, their highest-ranking captive in 50 years of conflict.
Speaking a day after the rebels released Alzate, fulfilling a deal to revive the talks, Santos said he had dispatched a government team to the Cuban capital Havana, where the negotiations had been taking place.
"They're going to go for a couple days to evaluate where the process is, where we're going, and make a cold, objective evaluation on how we can continue," Santos said.
The government team will meet with rebel negotiators Tuesday, he said.
The Havana talks, the fourth attempt at peace negotiations, are the most promising effort yet to end the guerrilla war in Colombia.
The conflict has killed more than 220,000 people and uprooted 5.3 million more since the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia was founded in the aftermath of a peasant uprising in 1964.
Source: Agence France Presse
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