Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro authorized the suspension of arrest warrants against ELN commanders in order to facilitate peace talks with the guerrilla group.
Petro announced the suspension of the arrest warrants and said that he hoped that the resumption of peace talks would lead to the “quick and expeditious” demobilization and disarmament of the guerrillas.
The peace talks were suspended by former President Ivan Duque after he took office in 2018.
The announcement came little more than a week after Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva and Peace Commissioner Danilo Rueda met with the ELN’s peace negotiators.
Colombia’s government talks peace with ELN in Cuba
Petro continues where Santos left off
Former President Juan Manuel Santos Chatham House, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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The president also said that he revalidated the protocols that were put in place by former President Juan Manuel Santos before the beginning of formal talks with Colombia’s longest living guerrilla group in 2017.
The revalidation of the protocols and the suspension of peace talks facilitate the resumption of formal peace talks with the ELN.
The government has yet to formally decide whether the talks will resume in Cuba or be moved to a different country.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric offered to host the talks after a meeting with Petro earlier this month.
The ELN negotiators have consistently called for the resumption of peace talks to end their almost 60-year insurgency.
Colombia’s ELN guerrillas reiterate call to resume peace talks
Why are the ELN talks on hold?
Former government negotiator Gustavo Bell and ELN negotiator “Pablo Beltran”
The formal talks with the ELN began less than a month after the beginning of the peace process with the now-defunct guerrilla group FARC.
The talks entered a stalemate in 2018 as the Santos administration and the guerrillas were discussing the specifics of the previously agreed citizen participation in the talks.
Duque subsequently broke off contact with the negotiators in Cuba after taking office, but refused to formally end or suspend the peace talks.
The former president did reactivate the arrest warrants against the ELN negotiators, which barred them from leaving Cuba.
Petro has consistently said that he would resume the peace talks even since he announced his run for the presidency last year.