The ELN guerrilla group says they are open to resuming peace talks with Colombia’s government.
In a recent video statement, the ELN’s second in command and chief negotiator, Pablo Beltran, expressed the guerrillas’ desire to revive negotiations over a political solution to the armed conflict.
We believe that it is possible to reach agreements, that a political solution is possible, and for us it is strategic that the entire society participates in this peacebuilding process. This is the political solution.
Pablo Beltran
The ELN negotiator stated that the solution to the armed conflict lies in the peace talks agenda agreed with former president Juan Manuel Santos in 2016 and with President Gustavo Petro in 2022.
“Let the current government, or the next one, respect the two agreements we signed with Santos in 2016 and with Petro in 2023,” Beltran said in a video released on a Russian video platform.
Petro suspended talks in January after a brutal ELN offensive that left dozens of people dead in Catatumbo.
The attack was the latest in an escalation of violence that began in August 2023 when Petro refused to extend a year-long ceasefire.
The refusal came after the president and the guerrillas said that the peace talks were in disarray.
Petro resumed the talks after taking office in August 2022. However, the ELN began backing out of the negotiations in the second half of 2023 after the government approved parallel talks with the ELN’s front in the southwestern Nariño province and regional authorities.
In late 2024, negotiators of Colombia’s government suspended peace talks with the ELN in response to an attack that killed two soldiers and injured 25.
The peace talks seek to end an armed conflict that began after the surge of guerrilla groups like the ELN and the FARC in the mid-1960s.
These insurgencies and a dirty war against the left have left more than 600,000 people dead, according to the Truth Commission.
