The Colombian authorities and the National Liberation Army (ELN) insurgent group introduced Tuesday a six-month extension to the cease-fire that has been in impact since August.
As a part of the extension, which got here at a sixth spherical of peace talks in Cuba, the ELN has agreed to droop kidnappings for ransom.
The negotiations started final month, as each events sought to agree on the extension of a cease-fire that expired on the finish of January.
“We have agreed to extend as of 00:00 hours on February 6, 2024, for one hundred and eighty (180) days, the Bilateral, National and Temporary Ceasefire (CFBNT),” learn a joint assertion posted by the ELN delegation on X, previously Twitter.
“The (ELN), in order to contribute to the development of the bilateral, national and temporary cease-fire, is unilaterally and temporarily suspending economic kidnappings,” the assertion, signed by each side, added.
The cease-fire, which expired on January 29, had been prolonged by seven days final week to provide negotiators extra time.
Colombia’s Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez had traveled to Havana simply over every week in the past to participate within the negotiations.
The closing ceremony is scheduled to happen within the Cuban capital on Tuesday morning.
‘Total peace’
The insurgent group had jeopardized the peace course of, which started in 2022, when it kidnapped Colombian footballer Luis Diaz’s father final October, releasing him 12 days later.
Talks with the ELN resumed in November 2022 after the election of Colombia’s first-ever leftist president, Gustavo Petro.
The ELN pledged throughout the earlier spherical of peace negotiations in December to droop kidnappings as a part of the final cease-fire extension.
Petro’s administration has held talks with Colombia’s primary armed teams, together with the ELN, dissidents of the Marxist Farc group – who reject a historic 2016 peace settlement – paramilitary teams and drug traffickers.
Petro took workplace with the acknowledged aim of reaching “total peace” in a rustic ravaged by a long time of combating between the safety forces, leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs.
But he has confronted many obstacles and has been severely criticized by the opposition, whereas some armed teams have sought to extend their territorial affect.
Several rounds of negotiations with the ELN have been held in Venezuela, Mexico and Cuba, which act as guarantors together with the governments of Brazil, Chile and Norway.
The group, which is estimated to have round 5,800 fighters, has been combating the Colombian state because it was based in 1964 within the wake of the Cuban revolution.
Source: www.dailysabah.com