Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos on Thursday rejected a ceasefire before the government and rebel group FARC reach an agreement to permanently end the country’s armed conflict.
Guerrilla representatives said at a press conference in the Cuban capital of Havana Thursday that they would be proposing to bilaterally cease hostilities as soon as talks started on October 8.
But according to Santos “there will be no kind of ceasefire. We will have nothing until we have reached the final agreement.”
Santos made his statement while visiting the central Colombian Tolemaida army base where he and Defense Minister Juan carlos Pinzon met with the military commanders and more than a hundred generals for a briefing on the pending peace talks with the country’s oldest insurgency.
The president and his defense minister have categorically discarded any decrease in military pressure on the FARC while conducting the talks.
The formal peace negotiations are the first in over ten years and will be accompanied by representatives of the Norwegian and Cuban governments.