Colombia Urges Smaller Rebel Force to Join FARC Truce
Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos on Monday urged the country's second-largest rebel force, the National Liberation Army, to join the FARC's one-sided ceasefire and parallel peace talks.
"We appeal to the ELN (its Spanish-language initials) to join the unilateral ceasefire as the FARC have done," Santos said.
"We also want to appeal to them to reach an accord as soon as possible on the agenda points we have been discussing for some time," the Colombian leader said
Talks between the government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas have held with the government in Havana since November 2012.
The Marxist-inspired FARC is the country's largest insurgency with about 8,000 troops.
The leftist ELN in turn has about 2,500 troops.
The long-running conflict, which has lasted more than half a century, has killed some 220,000 people and displaced 5.3 million more.
Source: Agence France Presse
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://naharnet.com/stories/en/161812 |