Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba said Sunday that soldiers Pablo Emilio Moncayo and Josue Daniel Calvo, held hostage by the FARC, will be released by the end of February.
This is latest of several claims by Cordoba, a hostage negotiator for the FARC and leader of “Colombians for Peace,” that the hostages will soon be released.
“The tentative date is this month. There are no difficulties in regards to security protocols,” Cordoba told journalists in Bucaramanga on Sunday.
“The coordinates for the geographic location of the liberation will be handed over by the FARC in two or three days time,” Cordoba added.
High Commissioner for Peace Frank Pearl reiterated to Caracol Radio on Sunday that the government’s security guarantees for the liberation operation were still in place, adding that all that remained was for the FARC to indicate the geographical coordinates for the release.
Cordoba denied that the FARC had rejected Brazil’s participation in the hostage release, despite reports by local media that this was the case.
Negotiations for Moncayo and Calvo’s release have been going on for almost a year now.
The FARC first announced that it would release the hostages in April 2009.
The Colombian government broke a stalemate in negotiations late last November when it authorized the International Red Cross and the Catholic Church to begin negotiations with the FARC over the long-awaited release.