Colombia’s government agreed to a meeting with ELN guerrillas to seek a possible resumption of peace talks that were suspended last month.
In a statement, the government’s peace talks delegates said that they “accept the invitation to hold a meeting” and “retake our dialogue in search of the acts of peace demanded by Colombian society.”
In order to resume the formal peace talks agenda, the representatives of President Gustavo Petro said that they need “a gesture that would demonstrate the ELN’s willingness to move forward in this process.”
In their invitation to the government, the ELN negotiators reiterated their demand the government removes the guerrilla organization from its list of illegal armed groups.
As long as the government does not overcome the current situation of non-compliance with the agreements, we will not be able to overcome the suspension to which they themselves led the talks process.
ELN delegation
According to the ELN, the government signed an agreement to remove the ELN from he GAO list in December 2022 already.
Despite the aforementioned, we in the ELN are prepared to hold a meeting with the government’s dialogue delegation to examine the crisis in which the process finds itself.
ELN delegation
The ELN peace talks began in 2017 when former President Juan Manuel Santos were in office, but were suspended for four years after former President Ivan Duque took office in 2018.
The Petro administration almost immediately resumed the negotiations after taking office in August of 2022.
The warring parties agreed to a bilateral ceasefire in August of 2023, but failed to extend this amid growing tensions the year after.
A major guerrilla attack on an army base in eastern Colombia triggered the government the government to suspend the talks altogether.
While negotiating, the warring parties were able to agree on mechanisms that would allow the participation of civil society groups in the talks.
These organizations and the Catholic Church convinced the government and the ELN to return to the negotiations table.