As the the 16th round of peace talks begins between the rebel group, FARC, and Colombia’s government, the FARC looks to change the “methodology” of the talks to accelerate the process. Their first move is to present 99 new proposals to the government.
“Andres Paris,” one of the negotiators for the FARC during the negotiations, said Wednesday that both sides will come together this week to find a new “methodology” to accelerate the process.
“[The FARC is committed to] redoubling efforts,” to achieve the end of these peace talks, stated Paris.
These statements regarding the hopeful increased speed of dialogues seems to clash with the FARC’s outline of nearly 100 new proposals they presented to the government this morning.
Paris said that the FARC intends to discuss 99 new proposals regarding the second agenda item on the list, political participation.
“If [the government is] ready to incorporate the 99 proposals that…contain our ideas about our political participation and reform, then I believe that we can close this cycle,” said Paris to local media Wednesday.
Meanwhile, President Juan Manuel Santos and Colombia’s chief negotiator, Humberto De la Calle have held strong that none of the proposals that differ from the original agreed-upon agenda items will be evaluated or discussed during the dialogues. Just last week, Santos issued a statement telling the FARC to stop bringing up new unapproved issues just to manipulate media and public opinion.
MORE: Colombia peace talks paused until end of October, no deal on FARC’s political participation
“Both delegations are grabbing hold of the [talks], and putting pressure on the dialogues now,” concluded Paris.
The anniversary of the start of the peace talks is right around the corner, coming in the third week of November. Only one agenda item of six has been agreed upon thus far.